Shenzhen remained the country's fourth-largest economy after it recorded a 12-percent GDP growth last year, official statistics released Friday (Jan 28) showed.
Figures from the city's statistics bureau showed industrial output was 409.26 billion RMB (62 billion USD), up 13.8 percent from the previous year. The growth rate was 5.1 percent higher than in 2009.
"The figure showed that the industrial growth contributed much to the city's GDP last year, surpassing the tertiary industries," said Guo Wanda, deputy director of the China Development Institute (Shenzhen).
Guo said the strong growth meant the city had recovered from the financial crisis that swept across the world in 2008.
The GDP growth enabled Shenzhen, which had fallen behind Suzhou in the three quarters last year, to overtake the Jiangsu city to rank No. 4 in the country again.
Guo said earlier that Shenzhen's economic growth was more sustainable. "Shenzhen's GDP growth didn't depend largely on investment in infrastructure, but rather the growth of a large number of private companies," he said. But fixed-asset investment accounted for a large part of Suzhou's GDP growth.
Shenzhen had gone through a painful period of industry restructuring this year and exports had just recovered to pre-crisis levels. However, growth in many Yangtze River Delta cities was driven by many large infrastructure projects.
Infrastructure projects also contributed nearly 20 percent to Guangzhou's GDP, owing to the Asian Games held in November. The capital city of Guangdong recorded a GDP growth of 13 percent last year reaching more than 1.06 trillion RMB. Guangzhou became the country's third city following Shanghai and Beijing to have GDP surpassing 1 trillion RMB, the Southern Metropolis Daily said Saturday.
