File Photo: Xinhua

 
Nanjing, capital city of East China’s Jiangsu, has remained the only city among the trillion-yuan GDP city club to report the economic growth in the first quarter despite the coronavirus outbreak has rocked local economies across China. 

Timely response to the COVID-19 epidemic and its effective transformation into a digital economy were behind reasons for the lesser impact on its economy, analysts said Saturday. 

Among the 17 cities that have a GDP of more than one trillion yuan ($141. 59 billion), Nanjing is the only one that saw its first quarter GDP grow, except for Central China’s Changsha and Zhengzhou which are yet to post its first quarter economic indicators, media reported Friday.

According to official statistics from Nanjing, except for the primary industry which contracted 0.8 percent year-on-year in the first three months, the secondary and tertiary industries all rose by 0.1 percent and 2.6 percent respectively. 

By contrast, Wuhan, the hardest-hit city in  China saw its GDP contract 40.5% in the first quarter, while Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen reported that their economies shrank 6.6%, 6.7% and 6.6% in the same period, respectively.

Hong Tao, director of the Institute of Business Economics at Beijing Technology and Business University, told the Global Times on Saturday that Nanjing scored fairly well in the first quarter is because the city’s leading digital transformation is further boosted amid the outbreak.

“The SARS epidemic 17 years ago boosted Jack Ma’s Alibaba and Liu Qiangdong’s JD.com, while this year's outbreak has promoted the ecological development of the digital economy, in which online retailing plays an important part,” Hong said.

A manager surnamed Li with an e-commerce women's fashion brand based in Nanjing, told the Global Times on Saturday that they have opened an online live broadcast shopping channel, and its sales have increased by nearly 60 percent year-on-year in April. 

“There have been limited impacts from the outbreak. Although the actual stores were not attracting much traffic, our online platforms that we’ve been building up for years are making money,” she said, adding that by April this year, the cumulative number of brand fans had reached 15 million, with sales generated through live broadcasting accounting for 20 percent of the entire brand.

The performance of Nanjing's GDP cannot be separated from its effective prevention and control of the epidemic. The number of confirmed cases in Nanjing was 93, with no deaths, and all 93 were cured and discharged from hospital.

Jiangsu Province adjusted the first-level response to the epidemic to level-two on February 24, making it one of the first provinces in China to lower the response for the epidemic.

The speed and efficiency of Nanjing to resume work and production are among the top in the province. Data show that as early as February 28, the work resumption rate of major enterprises in Jiangsu Province reached 99 percent. As of March 1, 18 cities in China had their work rate back to 100 percent, among which Jiangsu accounted for six.

Meanwhile, Nanjing’s main economic indicators began to pick up significantly, with industrial production in March returning to the level of the same period last year, and both manufacturing and non-manufacturing PMI readings above the line of expansion and contraction, industrial analysts said.

Among those bucking the trend were emerging industries, such as industrial robots, electronic components and integrated circuits, which increased by 58.3 percent, 25.8 percent and 80.4 percent in March, respectively, according to local statistics.

To further boost the spending, the local government also issued a total of 318 million yuan worth of consumption vouchers, becoming one of the earliest cities to launch the voucher policy.