Beijing's regional economy rises to $221b in first six months

Beijing's regional GDP hit more than 1.52 trillion yuan ($221 billion) in the first half of 2019, growing 6.3 percent year-on-year, and output by the tertiary industry rose 6.5 percent to 1.26 trillion yuan due to the strong contribution of the financial and service sectors, Beijing's statistics authority said.

"The city's economic development was steady with an upward momentum during the first half of 2019," Pang Jiangqian, deputy head of the Beijing Bureau of Statistics, said at a media briefing on Wednesday.

"As the development quality has been continuously improving, the city's economy is getting stronger and more resilient."

During the first six months of 2019, output in the primary, secondary and tertiary industries stood at about 4.94 billion yuan, 257.26 billion yuan, and 1.26 trillion yuan, respectively. The three sectors climbed by 17.5 percent, 5 percent and 6.5 percent year-on-year.

Industries with comparative advantages such as finance, information services, science and technological services contributed 67 percent to the city's economic growth. The output of the financial industries during the first half of 2019 reached 293.47 billion yuan, up 9.1 percent.

The output in the information transmission, software, and information technology industry touched 181.18 billion yuan, an increase of 13.7 percent. Output in scientific research and the technological services industry during the first six months of 2019 hit 177.25 billion yuan, increasing 8.4 percent.

The service industry remains a major support to the city's economy, accounting for 85.1 percent of the overall economic growth in the region, Pang explained.

High-tech industry output increased 8 percent during the first six months, while the rate of increase for strategic emerging industries was 8.5 percent.

Online retail sales posted growth of more than 20 percent, 19.7 percentage points faster than retail sales' growth.

From January to May, the revenue growth of industrial enterprises in internet information services, internet platform services and internet data services enterprises were all running above 30 percent.

Growth in the consumption sector also accelerated, with faster rates in both service and commodity consumption, Pang said, adding that the structure of fixed asset investments was optimized with faster investments growth in key industries such as finance, information technologies, commercial services, and transportation.

In the first half of this year, the nominal growth rate of per capita disposable income of Beijing residents was 8.9 percent. The actual increase was 6.9 percent after deducting the price factor, which was 0.6 percentage point faster than the economies' growth rate, said Bian Jing, deputy head of the Beijing Survey Office of the National Bureau of Statistics.