It's been about 15 months since China announced its strategy to build the Yangtze river economic belt. The region covers 20 percent of China's land and includes 40 percent of its population. The old growth models have taken a toll on the environment. Now the economic belt is focusing on environmental protection over rapid growth.

The 63 hundred kilometer Yangtze river is like fuel to China's economic growth engine. Up till the end of 2017, the region has built 24 thousand small hydropower plants, which helped boost economic activities. However, it's not all rainbows and sunshine.

YANG CHENGXI SHANGHAI "While the Yangtze river region has been an example of the country's rapid development, that growth model, driven by traditional industries, has shown its side effects."

WANG XIANGRONG, DIRECTOR CENTER FOR URBAN ECO-PLANNING&DESIGN, FUDAN UNIV. "If we go to the mid stream and downstream of Yangtze river, we can find so many chemical industry cluster and heavy steel industry."

Many of these factories have been gushing out industrial wastes, even illegal toxins, creating substantial health risks for citizens nearby. For the past few years, local authorities have stepped up their environmental efforts. About 500 polluted water areas have been cleaned up, and the overall water quality of the Yangtze river has been rising for the past three years. In the city of Yichang in Hubei province, the local government has been working with factories to make them cleaner.

STEPHANE RINDERKNECH, CEO L'OREAL CHINA "I could mention for example our Yichang plant, together with Chinese authorities, we have come to make it a zero carbon emission plant."

But for some heavily polluting chemical plants along the river, the city decided to shut them down. 25 of them was closed in 2017. For the local government, these efforts come at a cost. Yichang has seen both its fiscal income and industrial growth shrunk last year. That's because it relied heavily upon these tradition industries for growth, and this has been part of the reason why cutting pollution has been such a complicated task. But professor Wang Xiangrong of Fudan University believes it doesn't have to be, as China's manufacturing sector upgrades.

WANG XIANGRONG, DIRECTOR CENTER FOR URBAN ECO-PLANNING&DESIGN, FUDAN UNIV. "Any industry program should have a life cycle. High technology or green energy industries should be a kind of sunrise industries. Large water and energy consumption industries should be a kind of sunset factories."

That's why the region has been putting great focus on technology. Some 45 thousand high-tech firms have sprung up along the Yangtze river region by 2017, which experts say could hopefully replace low value added industries to become the new engines of growth. YCX, CGTN, SHANGHAI.