Shenyang is an important industrial centre in China and is the core city of Shenyang Economic Zone, a New Special Reform Zone. It has been focused on heavy industry, particularly aerospace, machine tools, heavy equipment and defence, and recently on software, automotive and electronics. The heavy industry started in the 1920s and was well developed before the second world war. During the first five-year plan (1951–1956) many factories were built in Tiexi district. At its peak in the 1970s, Shenyang was one of the top three industrial centres in China, alongside Shanghai and Tianjin. After the 1980s, the heavy industry had declined gradually and the city became a rust-belt city. However, the economy of the city has revived significantly in recent years, thanks to the central government's "Revitalize Northeast China" campaign and the rapid development of software and auto manufacture industries.
Meanwhile, the services sector — especially banking — has been developing in Shenyang. Shenyang has a few foreign banks, such as South Korea's Hana Bank, the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ of Japan. Hong Kong's Bank of East Asia Ltd., Singapore's United Overseas Bank Ltd., and HSBC Holdings. In 2006, the city hosted a total of 1,063 banks and bank branches and 144 insurance-related companies. By 2010, it aims to attract 30 foreign banks and 60 non-bank financial institutions.
The city has been identified by the Economist Intelligence Unit in the November 2010 Access China White Paper as a member of the CHAMPS (Chongqing, Hefei, Anshan, Maanshan, Pingdingshan and Shenyang), an economic profile of the top 20 emerging cities in China
