Expert names five main achievements of China in the development of inland waterways

Gennady Egorov. D.Eng.Sc, Proff. General Director, the Marine Engineering Bureau has named five main achievements of the People's Republic of China by 2020 in the field of inland waterway transport (IWT). He made such conclusions as a result of his work on a thematic review of the Chinese IWT market, the main theses of which were discussed with the expert community during the IAA PortNews webinar, December 2, 2020 “Billions of tonnes of freight moved on the Chinese rivers: Let’s give it a try”. The webinar was focused on the issue: "What can be learned from China experience to "rehabilitate” of Russia's inland waterways?"

Conclusion 1.
For 40 years, China has created a national network of inland waterways with high-quality shipping lanes and large ports in the leading regions of the country on these routes and in the rivers deltas. The scale of hydraulic engineering construction and dredging is considered one of the best in the world. As of the end of 2019, the total length of China's inland waterways reached 127000 kilometers, ranking first in the world. Of the planned 19,000 kilometers of high-level inland waterways, nearly 13,400 kilometers of IWs have reached the desired standard, connecting the eastern, central and western parts of China. The network of tributaries and canals is connected to the highways and the sea.

Leading river ports are integrated transport hubs, which are focused on transshipment of mainly containers, coal and ore.

Conclusion 2.
Waterborne traffic volume on China inland waterways is the largest in the world, and their efficiency and profitability continue to increase.
The number of river vessels in China in 2018 amounted to 124,345 units with a total carrying capacity of 129.2 million tonnes. The annual inland waterway shipping reached 3.913 billion tonnes in 2019, and the annual freight traffic on the Yangtze River route is 2.39 billion tonnes, ranking first in the world.

The country created specialized berths at the leading river ports with equipped and significant port territory. There is an accelerated development of multimodal transportation, modern logistics and business services provided.

The average carrying capacity of the river vessel reached 1,039 tonnes, which is almost twice as much as in 2010.

In 2017, the average age of a dry-cargo ship in China was 9.8 years, of a passenger ship - 10.6 years, of a tanker - 11.7 years, of a container ship - 9.5 years, of a Ro-Ro ship - 14.1 years, of non-self-propelled barges - 11.4 years and other vessels - 14.2 years.

Conclusion 3.
There is a constant growth in the share of river transport in the transport system of the country.

In 2019, river traffic and freight throughput accounted for 8.3% and 8.2% of national freight traffic over the same period, up 2.5% and 4.3%, respectively, on 2010 results.

Advanced logistics solutions such as intermodal rail and river transport and direct river-sea transport developed rapidly.

The volume of sea- and river-borne traffic reached 1.7 billion tonnes. The volume of intermodal traffic hit 202 000 TEUs.

Waterborne transport delivers bulk cargo through the regions in the eastern, western and central parts of the PRC and is the "core" of the transport corridor of the Yangtze River economic belt and the integrated transport corridor of the Pearl River Economic Belt (Xijiang).

Conclusion 4.
The country carries out constant development of the system of rescue response preparedness on water transport, created the system for monitoring the safety of navigation and rescue operations, constantly develops the means of search and rescue of people in emergency situations on the river and emergency response to oil spills. The response time to emergency situations on major inland waterways does not exceed 45 minutes. The average annual successful water search and rescue operations rate was at least 96%.

Conclusion 5.
It was possible to provide a breakthrough in key areas of environmental sustainability. The active construction of onshore treatment facilities and cleaning stations for liquid bulk and chemical cargoes, onshore terminals for LNG bunkering, onshore power supply to ships, construction of LNG powered and electrical ships is underway.

More than 170 top managers and industry specialists took part in the PortNews webinar “Billions of tonnes of freight moved on the rivers of China: Let's give it a try”.

Watch the webinar video in Russian here

The head of Rosmorrechflot Alexander Poshivay in his welcoming speech, noted that the experience of implementing a set of measures that made the PRC a world leader in the efficiency and scale of use of inland waterway transport should be studied and taken into account in the ongoing development of Russia’s national project for water transport sector development.