Shenzhen Mayor Xu Qin expects decades-low 9pc growth for 2013

Shenzhen has set a GDP growth target of 9 per cent this year, the lowest in decades, with the city government admitting that double-digit growth rates are a thing of the past.

Mayor Xu Qin told Shenzhen People's Congress delegates yesterday the city recorded gross domestic product growth of 10 per cent last year, unchanged from 2011 and the lowest since Shenzhen became a special economic zone in 1979. Shenzhen boasted average annual economic growth rates of more than 27 per cent between 1980 and 2006. Even in 2008, during the global financial crisis, its economy grew by 12.1 per cent.

But export growth slowed by nine percentage points last year and profits of major industrial enterprises fell 5.5 per cent, according to the report, which was delivered by Xu at the opening of the annual session. Fixed-asset investment grew by 12.3 per cent, up from 10 per cent in 2011.

Xu said the slowdown followed declining global demand and the fallout from efforts to upgrade its economic model. His report said the government had forced more than 1,500 labour-intensive manufacturers to make way for service- and technology-driven industries.

Xu said the city government would do its best to ensure 9 per cent GDP growth, keep encouraging enterprises to move labour-intensive manufacturing out and attract more service- and technology-related investment.

He said little about co-operation between Hong Kong and Shenzhen, apart from a single sentence hailing the development of the Qianhai Shenzhen-Hong Kong co-operation zone.