The State Council unveiled a guideline to encourage relocations of low-end industries from the country's coastal areas to inland provinces to beef up industrial restructuring and economic growth model transformation.

Such relocations would not only accelerate industrialization and urbanization in the underdeveloped central and western regions, but also help coastal areas shift their focus to high-end industries and allow optimized distributions of industries nationwide, said a statement from the State Council.

China's central and western regions have rich natural resources, a less expensive labor force and vast markets. Industrial relocations would bring these comparative advantages into full play, said the statement.

The country has seen a rise in industrial relocations in recent years due to rising labor costs and mounting environmental pressures in coastal regions.