China's northeast provinces are eager and enthusiastic to recreate their glory days as the nation's industrial powerhouse and narrow the economic gap with the rapidly developing eastern regions.

The provinces of Jilin, Liaoning and Heilongjiang are developing plans for an economically advanced "greater northeast".

China launched a high-profile campaign early this year to boost development of the three provinces, which had been the country's industrial production base from the 1950s to the 1970s and have lagged far behind other regions due to large numbers of laid-off workers and outdated industrial structures in recent years.

"It is our last chance to rejuvenate the old northeastern industrial base," said Du Xuefang, secretary of the Changchun City Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) of Jilin Province.

The three provinces have been trying their utmost in economic development and scored some achievements in recent years.

From 1999 to 2002, they successfully helped local ill-managed large and medium-sized state-owned enterprises back from the brink of bankruptcy.

During the first eight months this year, state-owned enterprises in Liaoning Province reported total profits and tax revenues of 25.018 billion yuan (US$3.03 billion), up 8.019 billion yuan (US$970 million) on a year-on-year basis.

In Jilin Province, post-tax profits of industrial enterprises reached 10.39 billion yuan (US$1.26 billion) during the first half-year, an increase of 140 percent from the same period last year.

Song Donglin, a noted professor of economics at the Changchun-based Jilin University, said that northeasterners' endeavors to rejuvenate their hometowns have never ceased and their hopes never been stronger than at present.

Although still hampered by a dearth of high-tech industries, monopolistic economic ownership, and unemployment and social welfare problems, the 107 million people in the region were more confident than ever in taking advantage of national policies to re-equip the rusty local economies.

Li Tianfeng, an official of the Jilin City Government in Jilin Province, said it was vital to boost the private economy and slash the proportion of state-owned industries.

Experts with the Jilin Provincial Academy of Social Sciences (JPASS), are unanimous in the view that the "greater northeast" concept called for combined practical efforts of the three provinces.

Sun Zhiming, director of the JPASS Economics Research Institute, said the three provinces are in an urgently need of drafting a uniform development plan for the region instead of independent efforts.

(Xinhua News Agency October 10, 2003)