BY the end of 2010, Yangtze River's navigation capacity has been raised by more than 50 per cent, while cargo movement of the river has stayed as the world's largest for the six consecutive years, Xinhua reports.

    Last year, the river recorded a cargo movement of over 1.5 billion tonnes. Ports along the river handled 1.4 billion tonnes of cargo. Deadweight tonnes of the ships on the river increased to 850 tonnes from 600 tonnes in year 2000.

    Director of Yangtze River Waterway Bureau Xiong Xuebin said the lower part of the river has been deepened to 10.5 metres at the Nanjing-Taicang section and 12.5 metres at the section from Taicang to the river's estuary, allowing 30,000-tonne ships to sail to Nanjing and 50,000-tonne ships to sail to Taicang at all time round the year. The middle reaches have been deepened to 3.2 metres from 2.9 metres, while the upper reaches have been deepened to 2.7 metres from 1.8 metres. Now 2,688 kilometres of the river's trunk stream is navigable.

    The lower reaches are the busiest. Cargo movement of this section accounts for more than half of the whole. In 2010, ship movement below Nanjing was as high as 3,000 ships, generating a cargo volume equal to eight Shanghai-Ningbo railways and six Shanghai-Ningbo expressways.

    During the period from 2006 to 2010, the navigable capacity of the Yangtze increased by 41.7 million tonnes on the upper reaches, 23.6 million tonnes at the middle reaches and 135.5 million tonnes at the lower reaches, generating CNY4.7 billion (US$715.1 million) to the economy, and contributing CNY53.6 billion in GDP growth along the river.

    According to Yangtze River Shipping Administration Bureau director Tang Guanjun, China spent CNY7.9 billion on river development from 2006 to 2010, three times of the sum in the earlier five-year period from 2000 to 2005.

(Source:http://www.schednet.com)