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YueyangThe city of Yueyang, on the eastern shores of Dongting Lake, is the only major Yangtze port in Hunan province. It is situated in northeast Hunan, 132km from the provincial capital Changsha, and has a population of around 900,000.
Yueyang is important historically and culturally and is a major tourist destination. It lies in a rich agricultural area, noted for its production of grain, tea and cotton, and for the rearing of pigs. Fishing is also significant: Dongting Lake is China’s second largest freshwater lake, second only to Poyang Lake in Jiangxi province. The petrochemicals industry is the most important locally, with prominent companies including Baling Petrochemical and Sinopec Changling Oil Refinery. Other significant sectors include textiles, animal feed, pharmaceuticals, building materials and paper-making. Many paper mills have been shut down for discharging chemical waste into Dongting Lake.
FIEs in Yueyang include Shell, A.O. Smith of the US and Chia Tai of Thailand, which has a major animal feeds plant in the district. Praxair of the US has one of the biggest foreign investments in Yueyang. Its plant in Yingshan Petrochemical complex produces high-grade carbon dioxide and other industrial gases.
Prominent among domestic companies is Yueyang Paper Mill, part of the Tiger Forest and Paper Group, which lies on the shore of Dongting Lake. It produces high-quality paper for customers across China and overseas, particularly in Japan.
Sinopec Baling, situated to the northeast of the lake, specialises in the manufacture of chemical fibres and chemical fertilisers. Shell and Sinopec jointly operate a coal gasification plant within the Baling complex. Sinopec Changling Oil Refinery has the capacity to process 8m tons of crude oil a year into petrol and other fuel products. Its annual output of chemicals includes 100,000 tons of polypropylene and 60,000 tons of sulphuric acid.
In the auto parts sector, Yueyang Hengli Air-Cool makes air-conditioners for cars. Wal-Mart operates a shopping mall in Yueyang, while Parkson of Malaysia has a department store in the city’s main pedestrian street.
Established in 1992, Yueyang ETDZ is situated in the northeast of the city. Its total planned area is 30 sq km, of which nearly half has already been developed. In 2007, the zone achieved a GDP of Rmb5.1bn, an increase of 23 per cent year-on-year.
Yueyang has reasonable transport connections. A road bridge across the Yangtze that will connect Yueyang with Jingzhou in Hubei province should be completed in 2010. The Beijing-Guangzhou Railway, National Highway 107 and the Beijing-Zhuhai Expressway all pass through the city, as will the Wuhan-Guangzhou high-speed railway when it is completed in 2010. A new railway line linking Yueyang with Jingzhou in Hubei province is planned.
Yueyang does not have its own airport, although one will be built by 2010, according to the Civil Aviation Administration of China. For the time being, the nearest options are in Changsha and Wuhan, both of which are accessible via the Beijing-Zhuhai Expressway.
Yueyang has a long history as a port city, dating back to the beginning of the Song Dynasty. The port has a large industrial hinterland that so far is largely untapped.
Yueyang port boasts a total of 142 berths, of which 24 can accommodate 3,000dwt vessels with a total annual handling capacity of 22.5m tons. The berths are scattered among the city’s terminals: Yueyanglou, Chenglingji, Daorenji, Lucheng, and Junshan.
Chenglingji terminal in the north of the city has the only Category One status in Hunan province, allowing foreign vessels to anchor. In 2002, it was merged with Tiger Forest and Paper although it handles various types of cargo and remains a common user terminal.
The city handled 41m tons of cargo in 2007, double the previous year’s total. Its principal cargo items include petroleum, coal, various ores, steel and agricultural products. Its container business totalled 47,474 teu in 2007, down nearly 8 per cent over the previous year.
Land transport infrastructure is good, with links to the expressway network and a 7.5km private rail spur that connects the port with the busy north-south Beijing-Guangzhou Railway.
The port’s investment priorities centre on the construction of a new terminal, known as Songyanghu. The three-phase expansion plan, which includes the construction of 13 berths altogether, will boost the port’s annual capacity to 10m tons and 880,000 teu when fully completed in 2025.
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