Ningbo's vast port handles 150,000 ships a year and is the world's largest by cargo tonnage. Its port and manufacturing facilities are the engine that helped power China's record trade surplus last year. Then last year, the bottom dropped out, according to data from the Ningbo Municipal Bureau of Statistics. The city's spending dropped 5.6% last year, according to the municipal statistics agency. In the boom years before the pandemic, municipal spending had risen 11% to 13% annually.
