The latest wave of Covid Chinese alliances has forced millions of people - almost three times the population of New York - to stay at home and undergo massive virus tests in the metropolis of Shanghai.

When Covid cases began to rise in late February, Shanghai sought to control the wave with targeted neighborhood locks. But the city, the center of global transportation, manufacturing, finance and trade, decided at the end of March to introduce a two-stage exclusion that would later affect all neighborhoods that are common.

Most people outside of China know that Shanghai is big, but few realize how big the economy is. The following figures identify the size of Shanghai as an economic center - and may reflect the cost of exclusion. 

+ Increased size

The official permanent residence in Shanghai in 2020 will be 24.9 million.

That is less than Australia's 25.7 million people, according to the World Bank.

But that's only 1.8% of the 1.41 billion people in China.

As for the US states, Shanghai is located between Florida (21.8 million inhabitants) and Texas (pop). 29.5 million).

In terms of US cities, Shanghai is three times larger than New York City (8.3 million inhabitants) - the largest city in the United States.

This means that 280,120 Covid contacts reported on Thursday in Shanghai before the last explosion represent only 1.1% of the city's population.

+ GDP

Shanghai's GDP will grow by 8.1% to 4.32 trillion yuan ($ 680.31 billion) in 2021. According to the IMF, this GDP is lower than in Sweden ($ 660.92 billion) and lower than in Poland ($ 720.35 billion).

But Shanghai's GDP, according to official figures, is only 3.8% of China's national GDP of 114.37 trillion yuan by 2021.

+ Global Trade Center

Shanghai is located at the mouth of the Yangtze River, one of China's two main rivers.

- According to Bernstein:

Shanghai is home to the busiest port in the world, followed by Singapore.

Shanghai Pudong Airport is the third busiest cargo airport in the world after Memphis, Tennessee and Hong Kong. Overall, Shanghai will account for 7.3% of Chinese exports and 14.4% of imports by 2021, according to Citi.

+ Production and shopping center

- According to Citi, Shanghai is better than China:

A major semiconductor manufacturing center, home to SMIC, Hua Hong and Universal Scientific Industrial.

Home of various car manufacturers: SAIC Motor, a joint venture of SAIC with Volkswagen and GM, Nio, Tesla and Ford.

It is headquartered as the main center for Chinese operations of multinational corporations: Apple, L'Oreal, Samsung Electronics, P&G, L'Oreal, LVMH, Nike, Panasonic, Philips, Johnson & Johnson and General Electric and so on.

Shipbuilding Base: Jiangnan, Zhonghua and Waigaoqiao shipbuilding. + Finance

The Shanghai Stock Exchange is the third largest in the world by market capitalization, behind the New York Stock Exchange and the Nasdaq at the end of 2020, according to the World Federation of Stock Exchanges quoted by the stock exchange.

In 2020, US mutual fund giant Vanguard announced a plan to relocate its Asian headquarters in Shanghai from Hong Kong.

Fidelity China is headquartered in Shanghai, as are US billionaire Ray Dalia's operations in Bridgewater China.

+ Consumer center

- In Shanghai, official figures for 2021 show:

Average disposable income of 78,027 yuan ($ 12,288) - more than double the national average of 35,128 yuan ($ 5,531).

The average consumer spending was 48,879 yuan - twice the national average of 24,100 yuan. In 2019, American wholesaler Costco chose Shanghai for its first store in mainland China.

And last year, Shanghai was home to the most coffee shops in the country, with nearly 3 stores per 10,000 people, compared to a ratio of almost 2 for Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Beijing, according to Meituan.

Shanghai is home to three of China's top 20 universities, according to U.S. Pat. News and world news.

The number of foreigners living in Shanghai fell to 163,954 in 2020, 21% less than a decade ago, according to official censuses. The southern province of Guangdong is now home to most foreigners in China with more than 400,000. The total number of foreigners in the country has increased from about 40% to 1.4 million people in about 10 years - about 0.1% of the Chinese population.