NANJING, March 2  -- The Yangtze River Delta is exhibiting a more services based economy, as the tertiary sector for the first time overtook the secondary sector to become the region's largest economic sector last year.

According to a report released on Monday by the statistics bureau of Wuxi City in Jiangsu Province, the tertiary industry of the region's 16 major cities' added value reached 5.43 trillion yuan (882.9 billion U. S. dollars) in 2014, accounting for 51.2 percent of the total GDP, compared with the secondary (45.8 percent) and primary (3 percent) sectors.

The report analyzed that the region had stepped up economic restructuring in recent years under pressure from shrinking resources, deteriorating environment and rising labor costs. The tertiary industry will be a new driving force of regional development, it said.

China was striving to adjust its economic structure to ensure sustainable growth as it shifts into an economic "new normal", focused more on quality of growth.

China's burgeoning service sector has started to replace the traditional engine of manufacturing as a driver of economic growth. The added value from the tertiary sector accounted for 48.2 percent of GDP in 2014, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.