Private investors will be encouraged to play a bigger role in upgrading the manufacturing sector, as China steps up efforts to widen access to key industries, the top industry regulator said on Sunday.

"Private investors have contributed 60 percent of the money poured into the manufacturing sector," said Miao Wei, the minister of industry and information technology. "We need to improve efforts to remove barriers and lower the entry threshold."

Speaking at the three-day China Development Forum in Beijing, he said investment in manufacturing grew by only 3 percent last year, partly because the sector yields lower returns than the real estate and financial sectors.