BEIJING — China's landmark plan for regional coordinated development reported improving industrial integration, official data showed.

The Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei area saw rapid growth of companies and other entities operating across the three neighboring northern Chinese provincial-level regions in the past five years, data from the National Bureau of Statistics showed.

Such entities reached 16,000 by end of 2018, surging over 180 percent compared to the end of 2013.

Among these entities, modern services like leasing and information transmission software expanded to over 41 percent of the total in 2018, while the share of traditional services dropped.

The Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei strategy was officially proposed in early 2014 as the country seeks to foster regional growth engines with coordinated regional development.