The Biggest Contributors to Chinese GDP

Even though GDP growth has slowed down recently, China still posts figures other countries around the world would consider quite solid. In the second quarter of 2019, the Chinese economy grew by 6.2 percent – still the fastest pace of growth in the world. In 2018, it generated a total of 90 trillion yuan Renminbi (US$14 trillion).

Looking at the components that make up Chinese GDP, Guangdong province with its manufacturing hubs Guangzhou and Shenzhen is the biggest contributor to Chinese GDP, with almost CN¥9 trillion (US$1.3 trillion) in contributions (2017). Of that, Guangzhou and Shenzhen contributed just over CN¥2 trillion (US$300 billion) each. Next up is Shanghai neighbor Jiangsu province with a contribution of around CN¥8.6 trillion (US$1.2 trillion). Shanghai itself made up CN¥3 trillion (US$420 billion) of Chinese GDP and capital Beijing was trailing behind that, contributing CN¥2.8 trillion (US$390 billion).

While Shanghai and Beijing have been the biggest cities in China in terms of GDP since the 1970s, other cities like Shenzhen were not ranking among China’s more prosperous cities until the 1990s, when the country’s economic growth took off. In Shenzhen, where a special free-trade economic area was implemented in 1980, GDP grew from under CN¥200 million in 1987 to CN¥2.24 trillion in 2017, an increase of over 1 million percent.