Premier Li Keqiang presided over a meeting on the revitalization of the northeast old industrial base on Oct 18.

The meeting passed an opinion and a 13th five-year plan aiming to revitalize the region.

Premier Li said the CPC Central Committee and the State Council attach great importance to the revitalization of the northeast and that President Xi Jinping also made several important instructions on the issue.

The Premier said the revitalization of the region, promoting its economic development and helping it get rid of poverty concern the economic development, transformation and upgrading of the whole nation, as well as overall coordinated regional development and the well-being of all people.

He called for the region to gain new glory by making development its top priority, implementing new development concepts, focusing on tackling prominent issues restraining its development, and continued reform and innovation.

Premier Li said stabilizing growth and ensuring people’s livelihoods were important ways to revive the northeast region. He said efforts should be made to stabilize investment and consumption, and speed up the implementation of projects included in the 13th Five Year Plan and the region’s three-year revival plan.

The service sector needed further development, the Premier said, adding that cultivating the aged services, tourism and culture industries was conducive to achieving consumption growth and reversing the economic downturn.

Premier Li called for the increase of policy and financial support to promote employment and ensure pension payments, thus safeguarding social harmony and stability in the region.

The Premier also wants key enterprises and particularly difficult areas to weed out excess capacity, and support the transformation of industries and areas relying on resources that are running out, taking targeted measures to promote their upgraded development.

The Premier urged the region to deepen reform, speed up the transformation of government functions, streamline administration, delegate power to the lower levels, strengthen regulation and improve services.

The Premier also called for the old industrial base to create a better investment and business environment. A negative list system on enterprise’s investment project management and market access in pilot areas should be released to protect various property rights, he added.

He called on SOEs in the region to advance reform and speed up transformation and upgrades. The efforts include issuing specific work plans, supporting parts of central SOEs to test mixed ownership, promoting the private economy, and selecting a batch of good projects to implement the PPP (Public-Private Partnership) pattern.

“We should promote development through innovation, opening-up and cooperation and seize the opportunity to transform old growth drivers to new ones, in order to create a favorable social environment for mass entrepreneurship and innovation,” said the Premier.

A special fund for cultivating new growth drivers will also be set up to develop new industries and business formats based on the “Internet Plus” initiative, the Premier said.

In implementing the “Made-in-China” 2025 strategy, the Premier said the region would rebuild its competitiveness of equipments, and develop its modern agriculture by taking advantage of its ample per capita arable land and advanced degree of mechanization.

The Premier also called for further protection of forests, grasslands, wetlands and black land, in a bid to restore the ecological environment.

In addition, he called on the region to boost an open economy and set up an important opening platform targeting Northeast Asia.

Meanwhile, the northeast region should draw on experiences in the Shanghai Pilot Free Trade Zone, and sharpen the international competitiveness of its major equipments, thus turning itself into a key force for international production capacity cooperation.

Premier Li also said that to achieve the rejuvenation of the northeast economy, related departments and central finance should consider the region’s actual needs for development and step up supporting efforts.

Also, southeast China’s coastal provinces were encouraged to establish cooperation mechanisms with the northeast region.

Moreover, each province in the northeast region is also urged to strengthen their responsibility, while altering outdated thoughts for development.

Vice-premiers Zhang Gaoli, Liu Yandong, and Wang Yang, along with State councilors Yang Jing and Wang Yong, attended the meeting. Heads of the Inner Mongolia autonomous region, and Liaoning, Jilin and Heilongjiang provinces, as well as members of the Leading Group of the State Council for Rejuvenating the Northeast region, were present at the meeting, as well.