On Sunday, China unveiled a plan to develop city clusters along the middle reaches of the Yangtze River in a move to create new economic growth engines and promote urbanization. This is the first cross-regional urban cluster plan that the State Council, China's Cabinet, has approved since the National New Urbanization Plan (2014-20) was released.

The plan aims to build a new growth pole of economic development along the middle reaches of the Yangtze River. This will mainly consist of urban clusters around Wuhan in Hubei province, the Changsha-Zhuzhou-Xiangtan city group in Hunan province and clusters around Poyang Lake in Jiangxi province. The clusters cover a total area of 317,000 square kilometers and will be a pillar of the Yangtze River Economic Belt. They will also be key areas to implement the "Rise of Central China" strategy, deepen reform and opening-up and promote a new type of urbanization.

The plan comes as China works to facilitate economic upgrading and sustainable growth through urbanization. Earlier media reports have said that a total of 20 city clusters may be formed in the country, including five at the national level, nine at cross-regional level, and six at provincial level.