Provincial officials said on 12 January that river cargo would reach a new high in 2009 on the back of its aggressive investment in waterway, port and other transport infrastructure projects. Last year, total cargo carried through the various waterways in Hunan exceed 100m tons, up 23 per cent year-on-year, giving a total of 21bn ton-kilometres, up 12.4 per cent. The Songyanghu Terminal in Yueyang, scheduled to start operation by the end of January, will for the first time enable Hunan to handle containers in dry season, which it previously was unable to do because of low water level. Officials are already predicting that container throughput will exceed 300,000 teu within the next two to three years.
Yueyang is Hunan’s only port city on the Yangtze trunkline. But the Xiangjiang River and Dongting Lake, both capable of accommodating 2,000-3,000dwt barges, are among the Yangtze’s most important tributaries. Changsha, the capital of the province, is one of the key feeder ports to Wuhan.