SHANGHAI'S inflation remained at 2.2 percent in April while economic activity strengthened, indicating resilience in the city's economy while China's overall performance fell short of expectation.

Shanghai's Consumer Price Index, the main gauge of inflation, rose 2.2 percent from a year earlier in both April and March, the Shanghai Statistics Bureau said yesterday. It compared with China's average of 2.4 percent last month.

Industrial production expanded 1 percent from a year earlier in April to 258.5 billion yuan (US$41.7 billion) in the city, reversing the loss of 1.9 percent a month earlier.

Fixed-asset investment jumped 13 percent year on year to 138.3 billion yuan in the first four months, also up from the pace of 10.3 percent in the first quarter.

"Shanghai's inflation remains tamed, and the city's economic recovery is stronger than elsewhere in the country," said Li Maoyu, an analyst at Changjiang Securities Co. "Although Shanghai's growth pace is slower than many other cities, it still leads in growth quality and efficiency of industrial restructuring."

The city's gross domestic product expanded 7.8 percent on an annual basis in the first quarter, picking up from last year's 7.5 percent increase and higher than the national average of 7.7 percent.

Although this figure again puts Shanghai in the position of one of China's slowest-growing cities, city authorities said this was the result of active industrial upgrading in a bid to sustain longer-term growth.

With only 0.06 percent of China's land, 1.8 percent of its population and 1.7 percent of its investment, Shanghai produced more than 4 percent of the nation's overall economic output.

Shanghai targets an economic growth rate of 7.5 percent this year, hoping to accelerate industrial restructuring, further raise incomes and enhance efforts to combat pollution, Shanghai Mayor Yang Xiong said in his government work plan, stressing a further shift to "growth quality."

In the first four months, Shanghai's inflation expanded 2.2 percent, lower than the 3.5 percent target for the year and leaving space for possible economic stimulus.

In the manufacturing sector, the city's six pillar industries, - information technology, vehicles, refining, steel, machinery and biomedicine, reported their combined output rose 1 percent in April from a year earlier.

Shanghai's trade value fell 1 percent to US$135.5 billion in the January-April period, but the city was still the fourth-largest trader among Chinese provinces and municipalities.

China's economy improved in April from that in March as growth of both industrial production and retail sales quickened a bit, data from the National Bureau of Statistics showed on Monday.

But combined with slowing fixed-asset investment, the world's second-largest economy's recovery was softer than expected, analysts said earlier.