The State Council, China's cabinet, published guidelines on Tuesday covering the revitalization program for the northeast region and traditional industrial bases, the Xinhua News Agency reported.
The guidelines call for the region to make major achievements in key sectors and reforms by 2020, and achieve full-scale revitalization in 2030.
Once China's industrial heartland, three key northeast provinces have experienced an even faster economic slowdown than the rest of the country due to problems such as weak market orientation, underperforming State-owned enterprises and an underdeveloped private sector.
The region saw nominal GDP growth rates that were well below the national average last year, with Liaoning and Jilin provinces reporting rates of 0.26 percent and 3.41 percent and Heilongjiang reporting a contraction of 0.29 percent, respectively. The national growth rate was 6.9 percent in 2015.
The guidelines call for the regions' industries move up to the medium- to high-end and make progress in innovation. They said industries in recession and regions that run out of resources should make significant breakthroughs in transforming their growth patterns by 2020, according to Xinhua.
The northeast should become the manufacturing base for advanced equipment and the strategic base for major technological equipment.
Although Northeast China's GDP growth rates were well below the national average, the area's per capita GDP was $8,045 in 2015, exceeding the national average of $8,016.
Liaoning's per capita GDP was more than $10,075, ranking in the top 10 in the country.
