2011-03-07 06:59

WUHAN - China will further strengthen infrastructure construction on the Yangtze River over the next five years, hoping to provide better public service for freighters on the world's busiest freshwater river, authorities with the river's navigation administration said Sunday.

More deep waterway channels would be built and the average tonnage for cargo ships traveling on the country's longest waterway will be almost doubled to 1,600 tonnes by the end of 2015, from the current 850 tonnes, said Tang Guanjun, head of the Yangtze Navigation Administration.

Major ports along the Yangtze River handled a total of 1.39 billion tonnes of cargo last year, up 22.3 percent compared with the previous year, recording the largest increase in the past five years, said Tang.

Also, the river's shipment volume of foreign trade goods expanded by 16.5 percent to 169 million tonnes in 2010 from one year earlier, he said.

Despite the rapid increase in foreign trade volume, analysts with the administration still fear that the growth rate might narrow in coming years as the rising labor cost, fluctuations in exchange rates, as well as international trade conflicts could disrupt foreign trade growth.

However, the traffic volume at the river will continue to increase in 2011 as the country is still expected to see an 8-percent GDP growth and the world economy will continue to recover this year, analysts said.