Official statistics show that throughput of general cargo on the Yangtze trunk line rose by nearly 14 per cent year-on-year to 132m tons in September, while container throughput increased nearly 20 per cent to 970,000 TEU.

For the first nine months, throughput of general cargo increased by 15.8 per cent year-on-year to 1,167m tons. Container throughput reached 8.1m TEU, up 22.5 per cent over the same period last year.

Over this same period, the four major safety criteria – number of major accidents, casualties, sunken vessels and total direct financial losses – have all declined, indicating a much improved safety record on the Yangtze trunk line.