On September 24, the Qingdao Municipal Bureau of Statistics published economic performance of Qingdao in the January-August period. Data show that Qingdao has taken solid steps to expand domestic demand, ensure steady growth, and improve quality and efficiency, and broadly enjoyed economic stability and made steady progress in the period. Over the period, the added value of industries above designated size, the retail sales of consumer goods above designated size, the investment in the industrial sector and the total imports and exports of goods across the city saw a year-on-year increase of 9.5%, 6.9%, 18.9% and 2.5%, respectively.

Since the beginning of this year, Qingdao has been beefing up efforts to accelerate high-quality development of industrial economy, advance the building a powerhouse of intelligent manufacturing and improve increasingly the industrial structure. As a result, new industries and new drivers of growth in Qingdao are gaining momentum, and industrial production is maintaining a rapid growth. The value added of citywide industries above designated size from January to August this year has gained 9.5% year on year. 27 of 35 main categories of sectors reported year-on-year growth in value added. Among them, the three sectors, namely, instruments and apparatus manufacturing, computer, communications and other electronic equipment manufacturing, and railway, ship, aerospace and other transit equipment manufacturing grew by 23.1%, 22.7% and 19.0%, respectively. The value added of high-tech manufacturing increased 11.1% year on year and accounted for 11.6% of the total amount of industries above designated size. Equipment manufacturing gained 9.3%, representing 51.9% of industries above designated size and contributing 50.5% of growth of industries above designated size.  (Liu Lanxing)