Water Transportation of china

Water Transportation In 1949 when New China was founded, the length of China‘s inland water channels was only 70,000 km and its annual freight transport volume stood at only 25 million tons. Some 79 percent of water transport relied on wooden sailing boats. After 1949, however, more than 90 shipping lines have opened along the coast, forming a shipping network centered on Dalian, Tianjin, Shanghai and Guangzhou, with links to other coastal harbors. After harnessing the Yangtze River, Wujiang River and Yuanjiang River, an inland water transport network has been initially formed, which links with various rivers and their tributaries. Before 1949, China did not have its own ocean-going shipping sector. But, after much effort, its ocean-going fleet has multiplied greatly and now plies between more than 600 ports in over 150 countries and regions. Since the reform and opening up program was launched in 1978, China has increased investment in the sector providing much development stimulus. During the Eighth Five-Year Plan period (1991-95), the number of berths at coastal and inland water ports increased by 374, and total handling capacity rose by 143 million tons. The period also saw completion of more than 100 deep-water berths, 50 medium-class berths, which have increased the handling capacity by a further 126 million tons. Inland navigable waterways reached 111,000 km, involving the Yangtze River, Xijiang River, Heilong River and the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, as well as the waterway system to the south of the Yangtze River. Meanwhile, China‘s civil vessels increased to 360,000 totaling 50 million dwt. International shipping companies rose to 310 and coastal shipping companies to 1,300, while there were some 5,100 inland water transport companies. The container fleets owned by China Oceangoing Shipping Group moved to the forefront among the world‘s top 20 liner companies. By the end of 1995, the volume of cargo transported by water reached 1.274 billion tons, a turnover of 1,755.2 billion tons/km, equivalent to the total amount of cargo transported through five other transportation modes, or separately accounting for 9.15 percent and 49.11 percent of the national totals. China is now a major water-transport country in the world. The water transport sector has made considerable progress since the reform and opening up program was launched. By 1997, approval had been given for the establishment of more than 120 Sino-foreign joint ventures and 406 representative offices in China, along with 53 exclusively foreign funded companies or branches in the water transport sector. China has also signed shipping agreements with 51 countries, as well as four inland river shipping agreements with some countries. China will continue to increase its investment scale and continue to develop the reform dynamics of the sector, so that it won‘t constitute a bottleneck to national economic growth by 2000, and strive to become a world class shipping country by early in the next century. By 2000, China expects to build another 100 10,000-ton-class berths to boost its handling capacity by 200 million tons. In regard to inland navigation, China will concentrate its efforts to build waterway networks related to the trunk stream of the Yangtze River, the trunk stream of the Xijiang River, the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta. By 2000, 2,400 km of watercourses will be improved, 160 inland river berths built, and 42 million tons of handling capacity increased.

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