In the first three quarters of the year, the gross domestic product (GDP) of the city of Quanzhou, in East China's Fujian province, rose by 1.5 percent year-on-year to 747.23 billion yuan ($112.36 billion).

During the period, the added value of the primary, secondary and tertiary industries generated 13.79 billion yuan, 423.31 billion yuan and 310.13 billion yuan, respectively.

That meant those industries enjoyed respective year-on-year growth of 2 percent, 1.3 percent and 1.7 percent.

From January to September, the added value of the city's industries above a designated size increased by 1 percent against the same period last year, with an increase of 5.8 percent in September alone.

Among the eight key sectors, the petroleum processing and building materials and home furnishings industries maintained their growth momentum, increasing by 13.3 percent and 4.6 percent respectively.

The city's total retail sales of consumer goods came in at 371.02 billion yuan in the period. That was down 3.6 percent, but the rate of decline narrowed month by month.

In the meantime, the city's foreign direct investment for the nine months was 3.86 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 16.5 percent, ranking it second in the province.

Due to the impact of the novel coronavirus, the e-commerce sector in Quanzhou has really taken off.

In the eight-month period from January to August, cross-border e-commerce imports and exports increased by 210.8 percent year-on-year to 2.35 billion yuan.