The Yangtze Waterway Bureau has announced that it plans to replace all buoys on the entire navigable length of the Yangtze with patented solar-charged minimum-maintenance uniform buoys within the next two years, comprising some 5,700 buoys in total. Designed by a local waterway maintenance worker, the solar buoys have already been used in the Wuhan section of the river. Compared with the traditional battery-charged buoys, the solar ones only need maintenance once every five years, saving a total of Rmb35,000 for every single buoy. The savings for the entire length of the river will exceed Rmb10m.
In another development, waterway officials announced that by the end of September 2008, night sailing had been made possible for the first time throughout the entire navigable 2,688km Yangtze trunkline. This should shorten journey times and therefore reduce logistic costs for shippers.