China will implement guidelines this year to promote the development of world-class industry clusters in the Yangtze River Economic Belt, with five emerging industries – digital information, high-end equipment, automobiles, home appliances, textiles and garments – being top priorities. Minister of Industry and Information Technology Miao Wei has confirmed that setting up world-class industry clusters for advanced manufacturing would be a key task for this year. The five key clusters will be centered in the 11 core provinces and municipalities with favorable industrial conditions, including Shanghai, and Jiangsu, Anhui and Guizhou provinces.

The Yangtze River Economic Belt involves nine provinces and two municipalities that make up roughly one-fifth of the country’s land area, with a population of around 600 million and generating more than 40% of the country’s GDP. These clusters will also unite with some national and provincial level development zones and industrial parks along the river to build trans-regional clusters with well-formed industry chains. For a long time, China has put a premium on the development of the Yangtze River Economic Belt in a bid to boost development in the riverside regions. More than 100 development zones and industrial parks are involved in the development of industry clusters. Among them, 82 are specialized in high-end equipment manufacturing, 52 in the digital information sector, and 20 in the automotive sector. Others focus on the home appliances as well as textiles and garments industries.

In the digital information sector, the cluster will join Jiangsu, Hubei and Sichuan provinces as well as Shanghai and Chongqing to improve integrated circuits, develop core universal chips and promote new material applications, the China Daily reports.