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November 2008 Persistent fog severely affected shipping in the mouth of the Yangtze River on 6 November, Shanghai port authorities said. Between 8am on 6 November and 10am the following day, 130 incoming vessels either cancelled or postponed their port calls to Shanghai, while 80 outgoing vessels failed to depart. Visibility in some areas was below 200 metres, said an official at a checkpoint in Waigaoqiao.
Kerry Asia Road Transport, the Thailand-based road unit of Kerry Logistics, is to start a trucking service between Kunming in southwest China and Bangkok. According to Thai Shipper, the new service is designed to provide shippers with the ability to truck directly to anywhere in South East Asia or China.
China will spend US$65.9bn billion on expanding or building at least 60 airports in the next two years. Construction on at least 40 of the projects will begin in 2009, and is expected to cost more than US$29.3bn, according to China Daily.
Projects include the expansion of existing airports in Shanghai Pudong, Guangzhou, Chengdu and Nanjing. New airports will be built in inland cities such as Yanan in Shaanxi province.
The municipal government of Chongqing has announced that its top priority for investment in 2009 is the construction of two major high-speed railway lines, Chongqing-Guizhou and Chongqing-Kunming; these lines will eventually connect the capital of China’s west with Vietnam, Thailand and other parts of Southeast Asia within hours. The Lanzhou-Chongqing Line, which was started to be built in September, will connect Chongqing with the EuroAsia Railway.
By 2015, according to the Chief Planner of the Municipal Planning Bureau, Mr Zhang Yuan, 11 major lines on the national railway network will connect to Chongqing, making the city the largest hub in China’s west and the fifth largest in the country, following Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Wuhan.
He also said that Jiangbei International Airport will become the fourth largest hub in the country behind Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou with four more runways already planned and approved by the China Aviation Authority.
The China Seismological Bureau reported an earthquake measuring 4.1 on the Richter scale in Zigui County, Hubei province on 22 November at 4pm Beijing time. The epicentre was believed to be along the banks of Xiangxi River, a Yangtze tributary only 30km from the Three Gorges Dam. Initial investigation showed that the dam, which is capable of withstanding earthquakes measuring 7 on the Richter scale, had not been affected. Details of casualty and damages were still not clear.
Meanwhile, the Yangtze has started its dry season (November to March). The Three Gorges Reservoir has reduced its water level by one metre to 171.8m and released a total of 1bn cubic metres of water by 19 November to help relieve the drought downstream. The water level immediately downstream of the dam between Yichang and Chenglingji is guaranteed at 2.9 metres all year round.
According to the provincial Xinhua Daily newspaper, Nanjing, capital of Jiangsu province, will spend more than Rmb23bn on developing its waterway and port by 2020. Some Rmb10.7bn has been set aside for modernising its terminals, the priorities being the expansion of Longtan terminal and the construction of Xiba, Tongjing and Qiba terminals. About Rmb1.5bn will be used to build roads and railheads that connect the terminals. Another Rmb2.5bn will be allocated to dredge the waterway along local Yangtze tributaries such as Qinghuai River, while Rmb340m will be spent on navigational aids such as buoys.
The global financial crisis and the slowdown in the Chinese economy have affected throughput in the Yangtze trunkline ports. In October, the total cargo throughput was recorded at 32m tons, about 90 per cent of the total in the same month last year. This includes the throughput of foreign trade-related cargo of 5.8m tons, equivalent to just 89 per cent of the total last October. Among that, 2.3m tons were exports and 3.5m tons imports, representing 98 per cent and 84 per cent of the amounts last October. Container throughput continued to rise but at a significantly reduced pace. The major Yangtze ports recorded a total throughput of 508,000 teu, up 16 per cent over the same month last year. Among them, 248,000 teu were exports, up 15 per cent and 260,000 teu were imports, up 18 per cent.
The Yangtze Container Shipping Price Index, based on the weighted average of domestic and foreign trade-related containers on the major routes of Chongqing-Shanghai, Wuhan-Shanghai, Wuhu-Shanghai, Nanjing-Shanghai, Nantong-Shanghai and Zhangjiagang-Shanghai and released on the 15th day of the month, recorded a 1.4 per cent decrease over September to 1,021.82. The lower reaches of the river, the commercially busiest section, recorded a bigger fall of 2.02 per cent to 963.69.
The Yangtze Dry Bulk Shipping Price Index, based on the weighted average of a basket of 13 commodities including coal, iron ore, copper, cement, limestone, and sulphur on 26 major routes and also compiled on the 15th day of the month, recorded a 4.02 per cent fall to 1,006.68, compared with September. Among the commodities, falling demand for coal plunged the coal price index by 10.18 per cent to 899.64 within a month. The shipping index for construction material also recorded a significant fall of 6.26 per cent to 1,218.34 over September. The shipping index for non-metal ores fell by nearly three per cent to 1084.37, while that of metal ores fell only by 0.33 per cent.
Spending on transport infrastructure looks set to increase following the central government’s recently announced Rmb4,000bn stimulus package designed to shore up the Chinese economy at a time of declining export orders. While much of the headline figure includes spending on projects that had already been pledged, it emerged that new money is being allocated to speed up construction of new roads and railways.
Lu Chunfang, Vice-Minister of the Ministry of Railways, said that investment in railways in the fourth quarter of 2008 would exceed Rmb150bn, which will account for nearly half the full-year total of Rmb350bn. Next year, the ministry plans to invest Rmb600bn, according to Yang Zhongming, the head of its planning department.
Since the beginning of October, construction has started on 11 major railway projects, including one from Shijiazhuang in Hebei province to Wuhan, Hubei province. Altogether, there are 150 major railway projects under construction nationwide.
He Jianzhong, a spokesman for the Ministry of Communications, said the pace of road building was also increasing. That ministry is set to make investments totalling Rmb300bn this quarter, bringing 2008 spending on highways to Rmb800bn. Some Rmb3bn will also be allocated on constructing small airports.
The water level behind the Three Gorges dam reached 172.3 metres on 11 November at the culmination of a six-week trial storage operation. The routine trial was conducted to check that the dam, the five-tier shiplocks and 26 hydropower turbo-generators were all working satisfactorily. The developer of the project, the China Three Gorges Project Corp, confirmed that they were. Afterwards, the reservoir began to discharge water.
The reservoir’s water level is expected to reach 175 metres in 2009 when the US$22.5bn Three Gorges project is fully completed. As of June 2008, 1.24 million residents had been relocated to make way for the dam construction.
The western section of Chongqing’s external ring expressway will open to traffic in late January 2009, according to a subsidiary of Chongqing Expressway Development Corporation. This 59km section of road will reduce the journey time from Beibei district to Xipeng town to just 30 minutes.
The corporation also announced that the expressway will introduce a non-stop toll collection system in future. Vehicles will be able to pass through toll gates at a speed of 30-50 kph, thereby improving traffic flow on the expressway.
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