Shortly afterwards, the State Council expanded the open coastal areas, extending into an open coastal belt the open economic zones of the Yangtze River Delta, Pearl River Delta, Xiamen-Zhangzhou-Quanzhou Triangle in south Fujian, Shandong Peninsula, Liaodong Peninsula (Liaoning Province), Hebei and Guangxi.
Since its founding in 1992, the Shanghai Pudong New Zone has made progress in both absorbing foreign capital and accelerating the economic development of the Yangtze River valley.