Quantifying the relation between industrial water use and economic growth is of great significance to industrial water saving. Taking the period from 1998 to 2015 as the research one, the PVAR model and VAR model are employed to study the relation between industrial water use and economic growth of the whole region and various provinces and cities in the east areas of China. The results of PVAR model show that there is a long-term coordinated relation between industrial water use and economic growth. One-stage lagging of the industrial water use has great positive effect on the industrial economic growth. The response of industrial water use to disturbance of industrial economic growth exhibits an inverse U process, that is, it first increases and then decreases. The water resources gradually restrict the industrial economic growth. The fluctuation in the industrial water use is mainly resulted from itself and slowly decreases. The effect of industrial water use on the industrial economic growth is gradually strengthened. The results of VAR model indicate that the VAR model cannot be established in Shanghai City and Fujian Province, and the results of VAR model, pulse response analysis and variance decomposition in the other provinces and cities are greatly different, indicating the necessity of researches of VAR model for various provinces and cities. Therefore, the PVAR model and VAR model should be combined, and different and specific policies of water resources should be formulated according to the local situations so as to form the beneficial cycle between the utilization of water resources and industrial economic growth.