Property investments make up for devastated tourism sector
Beijing's economy surged 9.6 per cent during the first half of the year even though the city was virtually paralysed for two months by the Sars outbreak, officials said.
Such robust economic expansion seemed unlikely given the apparent damage cause by Sars, but government officials explained yesterday that investments - especially in property - helped maintain growth even in the second quarter during the worst of the crisis.
'Yes, Sars devastated our city's tourism and related businesses,' said Yu Xiuqing, spokeswoman for the Beijing Statistical Bureau. 'We estimate that Sars caused 3.24 billion yuan [HK$3.05 billion] in losses at our hotels and restaurants, and possibly up to 10 billion in losses in related services, but it didn't stop the overall growth of Beijing's economy. The upward trend continues.'
Only 720,000 domestic tourists visited the capital, a 47.8 per cent drop, and there were only 26,000 foreign tourists, a 91 per cent decline.
But it was investors, about half of them private entrepreneurs, both foreign as well as domestic, who propped up the economy. They paid 71.4 billion yuan for a range of projects, primarily residential and light industrial development, a 15.2 per cent increase over the same period last year.
