(Yicai) Nov. 2 -- China has prepared a package of policies to accelerate the development of the country’s rust belt including Jilin, Liaoning and Heilongjiang provinces this year, the 20th anniversary of the implementation of the Northeast China revitalization strategy.

The package involves spurring industrial and technological innovation and proactively cultivating emerging sectors such as new energy, new materials, advanced manufacturing, electronics, and information technology in the provinces close to Russia, South Korea, and Japan, Yicai learned.

The region that has been compared to the United States Rust Belt is lagging behind the eastern and southern parts of the country in economy development, suffering from brain drain. In 2021, Northeast China made up 4.9 percent of the nation's gross domestic product, down from 8.5 percent in 2003. Meanwhile, the local population dropped by 8.2 million residents in the decade ended in 2020, according to the latest census. From 2003 to 2022, the central government transferred CNY11 trillion (USD1.51 trillion) in payments to northeastern regions.

The latest package further shows that the government aims to continuously deepen state-owned enterprises’ reforms in northeastern parts, speed up the modernization of agriculture and rural regions, improve collaborations for further integration and opening-up, and support population revitalization.

"China’s northeastern regions are facing a round of unprecedented new opportunities," Li Hongbiao, senior researcher at the China Academy of Northeast Revitalization, said to Yicai.

Implementing the top-down design will inject greater vitality into the region that is expected to achieve new breakthroughs in opening-up, industrial upgrading, attractiveness to talent, and economic integration, Li said, adding that especially, the enormous economic energy contained in the Far East will be further explored and unleashed.

China should provide the local equipment manufacturing industry with policy support and deepen cooperation between Heilongjiang, Jilin, and Liaoning, as well as the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region., Li said.

The revitalization strategy calls for seizing the three-to-five-year window of opportunity to tie the northeastern region to the domestic growth engine by making use of border ports, building transport networks targeting North and East Asia, as well as enhancing partnerships with Japan and South Korea in key sectors, according to Chi Fulin, head of the same academy.

Editor: Emmi Laine