The government-initiated program to revive China's vast western areas is getting new impetus as more and more people cast their eyes on the resource-rich hinterland and voice their support for the ambitious move.

Deputies to the upcoming Third Session of the National People's Congress (NPC) -- from the coastal, central as well as western regions -- hailed the program as "timely and far-sighted" and offered suggestions for the go-ahead of the trans-century project which, after completion, is expected to bring the landlocked region into China's new economic powerhouse.

"The decision to implement the strategy of developing China's west comes just in good time and will prove far-sighted, and people there have been greatly encouraged," said NPC deputy Wu Dengchang, who is also mayor of Baoji city of northwest China's Shaanxi Province.

The western region includes nine provinces and autonomous regions and one municipality, with a total of 5.4 million square kilometers and a population of 285 million, accounting for the nation's 56 percent and 23 percent, respectively. However, its per- capita gross domestic product (GDP) is only equal to 60 percent of the national average.

"The strategy provides an opportunity for us to catch up with China's coastal region. My province will strive to become an ecological shelter along the Yangtze River Valley as well as an economic power in the western areas," said governor Zhang Zhongwei of southwestern Sichuan Province.

Li Jinsheng, a deputy from the largest metropolis of Shanghai in east China, said that the whole country can share balanced development only when an economically developed western China emerges and east-west cooperation goes hand in hand.

Many enterprises of Shanghai have gone on a "gold-rush" spree in the western parts of China by investing over 10 billion yuan ( more than one billion U.S. dollars) in setting up more than 1,000 businesses, Li said.

The most positive response to the decision comes from western China itself, and in particular, local ethnic minority groups. " The strategy opens a historic opportunity for the western areas to speed up economic development and improve the living standard of ethnic minority groups, to greatly strengthen the national unity," said Ma Qizhi, a deputy from northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region.

China is home to 55 ethnic minority groups of some 110 million people, mostly inhabited in the west.

Entrepreneurs show special concern to the strategy. Dong Weiping, chairman of a Hangzhou-based listed company, vowed that he will lose no time in exploring market opportunities in the western region.

The central government has defined ecological and environmental protection as the base in developing the vast region. And in the long run, improved eco-system in the west will be conducive to ecological protection along the Yangtze and Huanghe rivers as well as to a sustainable development across the country, according to Wang Xianjin, an expert on environmental protection.

Academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences Zhang Litong said that the strategy not only offers ample development space for the national economy as a whole, but more importantly can further improve the layout of productive forces and promote the formation of a unified national market system.