Shanghai's economy is projected to grow by around 5% year-on-year in 2024, marking the beginning of a new era with a target of 5 trillion yuan (US$682 billion), Mayor Gong Zheng announced on Wednesday.

He also indicated that the economy is expected to continue growing at the same rate in 2025, as he delivered the government work report at the opening of the annual session of the city's legislature, the Shanghai People's Congress.

During the four-day session, which will conclude on Saturday, deputies will review the work report and provide recommendations to the government on policy decisions.

Gong also highlighted that Shanghai Port handled a container throughput of 51.506 million 20-foot equivalent units (TEUs) last year, maintaining its position as the world’s busiest port for the 15th consecutive year. It became the first international port to exceed 50 million TEUs in annual throughput.

Shanghai's airports handled 4.206 million tons of air cargo and served 125 million passengers last year, ranking second and third globally, respectively, Shine News reports.

The report also revealed that in the past year, Shanghai welcomed 60 new multinational corporate headquarters and 30 new foreign-invested research and development centres. This brought the total to 1,016 headquarters and 591 R&D centres.

Furthermore, the combined scale of Shanghai's three key industries, integrated circuits, biomedicine, and artificial intelligence, has reached 1.8 trillion yuan.

Also in 2024, 141 new parks were opened, bringing the total number of parks in the city to 973. Whilst this year, Shanghai plans to open 120 new parks, build 130 kilometres of new greenways, and expand green spaces by 1,000 hectares. The city will also continue to promote the 24-hour opening of parks, as stated by the mayor.

Moreover, last year the city completed the construction of the Shanghai Suburban Railway's Airport Link Line and the western extension of Metro Line 17, expanding the city’s rail network to nearly 900 kilometres.

Shanghai also established the first national public employment service regional centre in 2024, which facilitated 871,000 subsidised vocational skills training sessions and created 622,000 new jobs in urban areas.

In 2025, the city plans to enhance support for individual job seekers and generate over 600,000 new jobs, according to the government work report.