A three-year action plan (2023-25) was recently launched in Shandong to make further progress in the high-quality development of the province's western region, which involves Heze, Zaozhuang, Dezhou, Liaocheng and Binzhou, as part of its efforts to advance coordinated regional development.

In 2018 and 2019, Shandong rolled out relevant policies to boost development of the western region, which proved successful. In 2021, major economic indicators of the five cities, such as GDP, general public budget revenue, and disposable income of urban and rural residents, all grew faster than the provincial average.

As a populous region long plagued by weak economic foundations, the western area in Shandong is underdeveloped, constrained by limited resources and other factors.

The new three-year action plan defines the main goal of developing the five cities in western Shandong. The proportion of their output value in high-tech industries in the total industrial output value is expected to increase by at least 3 percentage points by 2025. The share of the added value of the Four New Economy is expected to increase by about 2 percentage points annually and breakthroughs are to be made in coordinated development, with the urbanization rate of permanent residents reaching around 60 percent.