Experts said the city is the largest beneficiary of the drive to relocate manufacturing from coastal regions to escape rising costs.

Analysts warned that the growth in interior region is still low-quality, and the general slowdown in this part of the country underscored the urgency of economic restructuring.

Commenting on Heilongjiang's poor performance, Da Zhigang, an economic researcher with the province's unit of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said: "State-owned enterprises concentrate in the region, resulting in a less vibrant economy. The economic slowdown reflected the fact that its industrial structure remained backward and the shift of its growth model lagged behind" other areas.

Xiong Jianzhong, chief economist of Sichuan's statistics bureau, said compared with the eastern regions, the western regions have a smaller share of the service industries and are much more reliant on investment.

Although growth in eastern provinces also slowed in the first quarter, economists are more optimistic about the outlook in those areas, as their underlying economic structures are sound.

"The country in the future will attach more attention to how the coastal regions transform and upgrade their economies. Without the transformation of the coastal region's economy, there will be no transformation in the national economy," said Xu Lin, director of the Development Planning Office under the National Development and Reform Commission.

Top 10 countries with highest GDP in 2013	Top 10 regions with highest GDP in China