An aerial view of the Lin-gang Special Area of the China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone in Shanghai. [Photo provided to en.lgxc.gov.cn]

The Lin-gang Special Area in East China's Shanghai city is looking forward to robust economic growth in 2022, in the wake of the excellent performance of a number of key metrics last year.

One of them was total social investment in fixed assets which reached 101.09 billion yuan ($15.9 billion) in 2021, a year-on-year increase of 62 percent. That's according to Wu Jie, deputy director of the Lin-gang Special Area Administration, who was talking at a Shanghai municipal government news conference on Jan 18.

Since Lin-gang was established in August 2019, total investment in industrial projects and urban function construction projects has topped a massive 800 billion yuan.

Wu said the continuing development of Lin-gang mainly focused on three areas: building an international opening-up industrial system, creating a modern city and establishing a dynamic business environment.

To date, a total of 1,065 projects had signed up to move there, involving a cumulative investment of 529.8 billion yuan. Cutting-edge industries – such as integrated circuits, biomedicines, artificial intelligence, civil aviation and new energy vehicles – continue to locate in the area.

The year 2022 is auspicious – being the third year of the Lin-gang Special Area and things are expected to go well. In the current year, GDP is projected to increase by 25 percent year-on-year and total investment in fixed assets is predicted to be 120 billion yuan, up 20 percent.

Plans are for the area's administration to invest 18 billion yuan in projects in 2022.