"Central rise" is a term increasingly used to refer to the development of the country's inland provinces.

In March 2004, Premier Wen Jiabao spoke of "promoting the rise of central China" in his annual government working report to the plenary session of the National People's Congress (NPC). In early December, this was repeated at the Central Economic Working Conference. The two mentions sent a message that the government is attaching great importance to balanced development of regional economies.

The central region includes the five neighboring provinces of Hubei, Hunan, Henan, Anhui and Jiangxi. It plays an important role in the national economy, with 8.8 percent of China's land area, 25.7 percent of its population and producing 18.22 percent of its GDP.

These provinces have lagged behind the rest of the country in terms of development, partly because other regions have tended to be prioritized. Eastern coastal provinces benefited from preferential policies implemented in the early years of reform and opening-up; the western region has been targeted for several years by the "Western Development Drive"; and the provinces of Heilongjiang, Jilin, Liaoning, the old industrial bases of the northeast, are likely to be advantaged by the government's "rejuvenating the northeast" strategy.

In June, Wen convened a meeting on the macroeconomic situation of the region in Wuhan, capital of Hubei. He summarized the overall characteristics of the provinces and raised guidelines and specific requirements for their development.

Central China is an important grain base, and has some of the country's largest iron and steel manufacturers and the largest manufactures of middle-sized automobiles, heavy machine tools and packaging machinery. Its power, metallurgy, machinery, chemistry and textile industries are not as strong as they used to be, but the region is rich in talent. Its cities, such as Wuhan, Zhengzhou and Changsha, contain many institutions of higher learning and research.

Wu Shuqing, ex-president of Peking University and an economist, said central China is in dire need of a "growth pole" to draw the economic development of the region as a whole. He pointed out that Hubei has considerable advantages and potential in this regard. Wuhan has a solid industrial foundation of iron and steel, automobile and shipbuilding and strong and nationally competitive capacity for research and development.

Wu also said it has many prestigious universities producing a large amount of high-caliber talent, plus it has a unique geographical location that makes it a hub for national land and waterway communications.

(China News Service, translated by Chen Chao for China.org.cn, December 29, 2004)