On October 26, a press conference was held by the Municipal Development and Reform Commission, the Municipal Statistics Bureau, and the Yichang Investigation Team of the National Bureau of Statistics to report on the economic performance of Yichang in the first three quarters. According to reports, the city's economy enjoyeda strong momentum of steady growthin the first three quarters, laying a good foundation for the acceleration of its transformation, upgrading and high-quality development, and for the full realization of the annual targets.

　　It is revealed that the city's main economic indicators keptup atrend of recoveryin the third quarter, with the generation of 293.516 billion yuan in GDP, a year-on-year growth of 7.0%, and the growth rate is 0.6 percentage points higher than that of the second quarter; the added value of industrial enterprises above designated size increased by 7.8%, 1% higher than that in the second quarter; the fixed asset investment increased by 10.1%, which was 1.7 percentage points higher than that of the past quarter; the total retail sales of consumer goods reached 109.46 billion yuan, a growth of 11.5%, 0.6 percentage points higher than the last quarter; the foreign trade exports achieved 12.73 billion yuan, an increase of 10.4%, 4.1 percentage points higher than the second quarter. Prices remained stable, with the urbanresidents’consumption price rising by1.9% and residents' income increased steadily, and the per capita disposable income of all residents was 17,909 yuan, an increase of 8.1%.

　　Its investment support becomes stronger. The growth rate of fixed asset investment in our city has rebounded in the past five months, with the growth rate in the first three quarters increased by 12.3 percentage points from that of the first four months. Now, 2,126 projects are under construction in the city, 153 more than the projects of the same period of last year. Newly-signed investment projects with an investment of more than 50 million yuan amount to 619, with an agreed investment amount of 124.16 billion yuan. The construction of key projects has been solidly promoted, achieving 93.3% of the annual target, with 92 out of the 100 provincial and municipal key projects started.

　　The city’s industrial transformation has been accelerated. Its emerging industries such as bio-medicine, electronic information, new materials and advanced equipment manufacturing are growing rapidly, with a year-on-year output value growth of 20%, which is 4.5 percentage points higher than the city's average level; their output value accounts for 38.4% of the city's total, increasing by 1.4% over the same period of last year. Its high-tech manufacture enjoys a year-on-year output value growth of 23.7%, which is 8.2 percentage points higher than the city's average. And its tertiary industry has been developing at a quicker speed.

　　The Quality and efficiency of development has improved. The investment structure is getting optimized, with private investment and industrial investment accounting for 69.1% and 49.1% respectively, a growth of 21.9% and 13.9% for each, and the figures are 18.0 and 6.5 percentage points respectively higher than the same period of last year. And the investment in the tertiary industry has increased by 8.1%, rising in the past four consecutive months. The quality and efficiency of fiscal and taxation has also improved, and the proportion of tax revenue to general public budget revenue is 69.4%, an increase of 15.9 percentage points higher than the same period of last year.

　　The environment for further development is improving, with the issue of Several Opinions on Further Optimizing the Business Environment and the implementation of other 21 measures to reduce costs and improve the environment. And with the service activities of “Hundreds of officials Entering Hundreds Enterprises”being carried out in depth, the529 problems faced by the industrial and service enterprises have been collected, 314 of them having been solved. The employment situation is generally stable and the ecological environment continues to improve. The average concentration of PM10 and PM2.5 in the city has decreased by 8.1% and 10.9% respectively, and the proportion of excellent days is 83%, 2.5 percentage points higher than the same period of last year. (Reporter: Sun Xiaoling, Zhang Silu)