BEIJING- The economy of Shanghai, China’s most populous city, slowed in the first quarter from the end of 2021, hurt by rare declines in industrial output and retail sales that were hammered by the country’s most serious COVID outbreak.
Shanghai’s gross domestic product (GDP) grew 3.1 percent in the first quarter from a year earlier, the local statistics bureau said on Saturday, significantly less than the 4.8 percent growth in the national GDP during the same period announced earlier. In 2021, Shanghai’s GDP rose 8.1 percent.
“In January-February, the city’s economic operation was stable, but due to the impact of the COVID outbreak in March, the first quarter was marked by stability followed by a decline,” the city’s statistics bureau said in a statement.
Shanghai started reporting COVID cases in the latest outbreak in early March, with authorities declaring a lockdown of the entire city of 25 million people in early April when infections escalated.
The economic slowdown in Shanghai, which did not publish GDP data for the fourth quarter of 2021, is widely expected to have worsened in April. Its GDP contracted 6.7 percent in January-March 2020 when the new coronavirus first emerged.
Output of Shanghai’s vast industrial sector plunged 7.5 percent year-on-year in March after stringent lockdown measures halted some production, a city official said on Friday.
For January-March, industrial production grew 4.8 percent from a year earlier, the Saturday data showed.
Shanghai’s first-quarter retail sales, a key gauge of consumption, fell 3.8 percent year-on-year, swinging from 3.7 percent growth in the first two months.
In March alone, retail sales nosedived by 18.9 percent.
In the first quarter, the city’s consumer prices rose 1.8 percent from a year earlier, with prices in January-February up 1.6 percent year-on-year and accelerating in March to a 2.2 percent clip.
The higher consumer inflation came as Shanghai residents complained about food and basic supplies during the lockdown, with some saying prices of vegetables had gone up by five to 10 times of levels before the outbreak.
Job creation also slowed, with Shanghai reporting 192,600 new jobs in the first quarter, a drop of 26,200 from the year-earlier quarter.
Shanghai authorities battling an outbreak of COVID-19 have erected fences outside residential buildings, sparking fresh public outcry over a lockdown that has forced much of the city’s 25 million people indoors.
Images of white hazmat suit-clad workers sealing entrances of housing blocks and closing off entire streets with roughly two metre-tall green fencing went viral on social media, prompting questions and complaints from residents.
“This is so disrespectful of the rights of the people inside, using metal barriers to enclose them like domestic animals,” said one user on social media platform Weibo.
One video showed residents shouting from balconies at workers trying to set up fencing before relenting and taking it away. Other videos showed people trying to pull fences down.
“Isn’t this a fire hazard?” asked another Weibo user.
Many of the fences were erected around compounds designated “sealed areas” – buildings where at least one person tested positive for COVID-19, meaning residents are forbidden from leaving their front doors.
It was not clear what prompted authorities to resort to fencing. A notice dated Saturday from one local authority shared online said it was imposing “hard quarantine” in some areas.
Reuters was not able to verify the authenticity of the notice or all of the images, but saw green fencing on a street in central Shanghai on Sunday.
