Baotou in North China’s Inner Mongolia autonomous region recorded steady economic performance in the first half of 2020, with its regional GDP worth 131.8 billion yuan ($18.82 billion), according to local media reports.

Officials said the economy’s rate of decline narrowed by 2.4 percentage points compared with the first quarter, while the figure was 2.3 percentage points higher than the autonomous region’s average.

Fixed asset investments came in at 19.3 billion yuan in H1, with the decline rate narrowing by 5.4 percentage points from the January to May period.  

In the first half of the year, the city's industrial electricity consumption increased by 8.4 percent year-on-year and power consumption in June alone increased by 13.8 percent year-on-year.

As an industrial city, Baotou's steel, aluminum and power industries account for 60 percent of the value of the city’s industrial output.

Officials said that through technological innovation, transformation and upgrading, traditional industries will become stronger and become the cornerstone of Baotou's economy.

They added that in 2020 Baotou city will invest 92.26 billion yuan in total, focusing on the implementation of 209 traditional industrial transformation and upgrading projects. 

As of end-June, the completed investment was 40.6 billion yuan, with a completion rate of 40.2 percent, and the total amount ranked first in the region, officials said.

From January to May, the city's added value of industries above a designated size increased by 6.1 percent year-on-year, 8.9 percentage points higher than the national average and 8.6 percentage points higher than the autonomous region’s average.

The added value of the five pillar industries -- steel, aluminum, equipment manufacturing, rare earths and electricity -- increased by 5.3 percent year-on-year, of which the added value of the equipment manufacturing industry increased by 12.4 percent.