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December 2009 Chongqing municipal government has announced that all of its rail projects due to be completed by 2020 have been rescheduled and brought forward to completion by 2015 in an effort to stimulate domestic demand. This re-scheduling involves 11 major intercity and national rail projects.
In 2010, five new rail projects will start construction, including the Chengdu-Chongqing, Chongqing-Guizhou and Yichang-Wanzhou lines.
Sinopec Yangtze Petrochemical has recently been approved by the Jiangsu provincial government to open up four of its privately-owned quays to outside users, including foreign vessels. They are No. 11, 12, 14 and 16 quays.
Details of their exact locations were not given in the story released by the China News Agency on 23 December.
In the year to 21 December 2009, a total of 72m tons of cargo had passed the Three Gorges shiplocks including 13m tons using fanba. Instead of waiting their turn in the queue, many shippers opt to save time by unloading cargo and transporting it by road before loading the cargo back onto vessels further upstream or downstream beyond the final set of locks. The practice is known in Chinese as fanba.
According to the Three Gorges Administration of Navigational Affairs, the locks have a revised annual capacity of 100m tons.
Nanjing municipal government said the city’s Hanzhongmen Bridge would have to be repaired properly, after a public outcry followed attempts by a local construction team to fix the cracks with glue, according to state media reports.
The 120-metre bridge is an important crossing that connects Hexi district and downtown Nanjing. Completed in November 2008, the bridge won a design excellence award in June this year.
Recently, however, officials found substantial cracks in 50 bridge railings.
When the authorities were alerted to the fact that the bridge had been mended with glue, they ordered the construction team to return to the bridge and repair it by the end of January and pay the Rmb500,000 bill themselves.
Honda Motor plans to build a new car plant in Wuhan, capital of Hubei province, to increase production in China’s growing auto market, according to sources quoted by Kyodo News.
The new plant is scheduled to start operations in 2011 at the earliest and will have an annual output capacity of more than 100,000 cars.
The plant will be the Honda’s fifth in China to produce four-wheeled vehicles and will boost its overall capacity in the country to more than 700,000 units, or 20 per cent higher than the current level.
Singapore’s Changi Airport Group has signed a memorandum of understanding with Chongqing Airport Group that is designed to promote management co-operation and staff exchanges between the two airports.
In addition, the Changi subsidiary Changi Airports International (CAI) has won two consultancy projects relating to Chongqing Jiangbei International Airport. These projects cover a review of the airport’s passenger transfer operations and proposed improvements to its retail space.
This is the second time that Changi’s consultancy unit has won a Chongqing contract, the first being awarded in 2008. That project involved CAI increasing the airport’s commercial space by 30 per cent. With the latest projects, CAI hopes to raise service standards at Chongqing Airport and boost its commercial revenue.
Hubei Airport Group has signed strategic framework agreements with China’s leading three airlines to build Wuhan Tianhe International Airport into an international aviation hub. As part of the agreement, China Southern Airlines, China Eastern Airlines and Air China will have more than 60 planes based at the airport in 2010, and the number of international routes will be increased to more than ten.
China Southern said it would increase the number of planes based at Wuhan airport from 20 to 30 next year, and it also plans to launch services from Wuhan to Tokyo and Seoul.
It is estimated that the passenger throughput at Wuhan Tianhe International Airport will total 13m in 2010, and that cargo and mail volume will reach 120,000 tons.
China Southern Airlines has launched express routes linking Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong province, with Wuhan and Changsha in central China. The new services are in response to the start of the Wuhan-Guangzhou high-speed rail service that begins operations on 26 December.
The Guangzhou-based airline will offer 14 daily flights between Guangzhou and Wuhan, capital of Hubei province, and 16 between Guangzhou and Changsha, capital of Hunan province.
Until 28 March 2010, it will offer promotional tickets on both routes. Tickets for the Wuhan-Guangzhou flights cost Rmb390, about half the price of a first-class train ticket and Rmb100 less than a second-class ticket. The Wuhan-Guangzhou high-speed railway will take three hours, according to official reports, compared with one-and-a-half hours by air. However, this excludes the extra travelling and waiting time involved in flying.
Other carriers, including Air China and Hainan Airlines, have also cut ticket prices on these routes.
APM Terminals has selected Shanghai as its Asia-Pacific regional headquarters, reported Shipping Gazette.
The decision was made to position the company closer to its most important Chinese customers and strategic partners as well as streamline operations and reduce costs, said a company statement. These partners and customers include Shanghai International Port Group and Zhenhua Port Machinery.
The Shanghai government also played an important role in the decision, according to the Netherlands-based company, as it strives to attract more leading multinational companies to locate their regional head offices in the city.
Port operator China Merchants and Qingdao Port are creating a Rmb6.22bn joint venture to build and operate a container terminal in Qingdao, Shandong province.
Qingdao New Qianwan Container Terminal, invested by Qingdao Port Group, Cosco Pacific, DP World, AP Møller-Maersk and Pan Asia Shipping, along with China Merchants Group’s unit China Merchants Holdings (International), will each hold 50 per cent stakes each in the new venture.
The venture called Qingdao Qianwan United Container Terminal will develop, operate and manage nine berths in Qingdao with a shoreline of 3.16km.
Qingdao Port said the project would benefit the port of Qingdao at a time of global industrial restructuring amid the global financial crisis.
Qingdao, the world’s seventh largest in terms of trade volume, handled more than 300m tons of cargo in the year to December 13, a year-on-year increase of 5 per cent. Container throughput rose 2.3 per cent in the first 11 months to 9.4m TEU.
The Shanghai-Chongqing Highway has now been completed with the trial opening of the 320km-long Hurongxi section in Hubei province. Construction of this mountainous section started in 2002, and includes 370 bridges and 46 tunnels. It involved an investment of Rmb20.4bn.
The 1,900km-long Shanghai-Chongqing National Highway has reduced travel time between the two municipalities to about 17 hours.
Zhangjiagang port claims to have beaten its full-year cargo throughput target in the first 11 months of this year. The port had aimed to handle 135m tonnes of cargo in 2009, but total throughput stood at 136m tonnes between January and November, up 20 per cent year-on-year.
Out of the total, there was a 31 per cent rise in international cargo to 35.9m tons and an 8.3 per cent increase in container throughput to 786,000 teu.
The city government attributed the increase to a series of expansionist measures that included dredging new channels in the eastern part of the port and installing new anchorages to meet an increasing number of foreign trade vessels calling there. Lloyd’s List reported that Customs have also speeded up cargo examination procedures and improved the reporting mechanism for dangerous goods in the port.
Track laying on Chengdu’s Metro Line was officially completed on 30 November, according to the municipal government. Trial operation is expected to begin in October 2010.
The Rmb1.1bn second phase of Chongqing’s Cuntan terminal is due to be ready for opening at the end of 2009, reported Xinhua. Four 3,000-tonne berths with an annual capacity of 420,000 TEU, 150,000 ro-ro units and 800,000 tonnes of breakbulk are being constructed on the 59-hectare site.
The third phase involved the construction of four more berths with additional capacity of 560,000 TEU. This will increase Cuntan’s throughput capacity to 1.89m TEU, making it the largest container terminal on the Yangtze River’s upper reaches.
In a separate development, Sichuan Chuanwei Group said it may shift its trade and logistics activities to Chongqing Lianglu Cuntan Bonded Port Area.
Chuanwei Group is a private enterprise that is involved in the iron and steel, minerals, cement and logistics sectors. It said the move would yield savings of Rmb50m if its imported iron ore were to be transported via the bonded area.
Work is to start at the end of this month on Chongqing’s second light rail line. The 60km Line 6 is expected to be completed in 2012, according to Chongqing Rail Transit Corporation.
It will be the main traffic line running from southeast to northwest Chongqing run, and it will connect the districts of Nanan and Beibei. The line will have 29 stations and a designed speed of 100 kph.
China’s aviation industry has staged a strong recovery this year, according to statistics released by the country’s Civil Aviation Administration. The sector, including both airlines and airports, netted total profits of Rmb11.8bn in the first 11 months of 2009.
From January to November, airlines carried 210m passengers, an increase of 20 per cent year-on-year. Over the same period, nearly 4m tons of cargo and mail were handled, up 5.7 per cent. Total air traffic in the period reached 38.65bn ton-kilometres, up 11.4 per cent over the same period last year.
The domestic market has performed particularly strongly, although there are also tentative signs of an improvement in international business. Cargo and mail throughput on international routes was unchanged for the first 10 months of 2009 and increased by 0.2 per cent year-on-year in November.
Earlier this month, the Guangzhou-based China Southern Airlines started scheduled freighter services between Shanghai Pudong and Frankfurt airports. The service is currently operated with a Boeing 747-400F but will be replaced by a Boeing 777ER next year.
Mainland China accounted for 22.6 per cent of global container throughput in 2008, according to data from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). The inclusion of Hong Kong pushed its share to over a quarter.
World container throughput increased by some 4 per cent to 506m TEU. This decelerated rate of growth occurred at a time when the supply of vessels continued to rise, thereby suppressing shipping rates. “This growth was the result of vessel orders placed before the financial crisis, when the industry was still expecting continuing high growth rates in demand − which did not materialise,” said the UNCTAD report.
Shanghai port’s cargo throughput increased 19 per cent year-on-year to 30.7m tons in November 2009, its first monthly double-digit growth rate of the year. However, the total was down on the October 2009 throughput level of 31.2m tons.
Container throughput totalled 2.2m TEU, down 3.3 per cent from the same month last year. This was the lowest monthly fall of 2009, according to Shanghai International Port Group, the city’s port operator. Shanghai handled a total of 22.6m TEU in the first 11 months of 2009, a decline of 12.3 per cent year-on-year.
The Wuhan-Guangzhou high-speed railway will open on 26 December. Part of the Beijing-Guangzhou line, the 990km southern section will cut the journey time between Wuhan and Guangzhou to just three hours from 11 hours.
One-way tickets will cost Rmb788 for first-class passengers and Rmb490 for second-class passengers.
Chongqing Evening Newspaper reported that local cab drivers are objecting to a code of higher service standards that the local government announced on 1 December.
The code is an adapted version of national standards for taxi services that were announced in May this year. They include the requirement for taxi drivers to speak Mandarin Putonghua, refrain from smoking, spitting and fly tipping, and offer help with customers’ luggage.
The newspaper carried out a straw poll of 30 local taxi drivers on 16 December. None was willing to speak Mandarin for fear of being ridiculed, while eight said that they would do so only if the voluntary code was made compulsory. The majority, 26 of them, were not willing to help with luggage, saying it would delay the prospect of finding new customers.
Some major taxi companies have acknowledged the scale of the challenge ahead but want to incorporate the national standards into their internal performance evaluation programme from next year so that within two to three years, taxi services in Chongqing will rise to national standards.
Taxi services in Chongqing are among the worst of any major city in China. Driver malpractices are rampant, such as disregarding traffic regulations and refusing to take customers if they only want to travel a short distance.
Jiangyin port reported that its throughput had increased by 20 per cent to 100.2m tons in the year to 13 December 2009. This is the first time that the Jiangsu port has ever reached this benchmark; only four other Yangtze River ports have already achieved such a throughput level.
China’s first shipping agents’ club was established in Shanghai on 9 December. It involves some of the world’s largest shipbrokers, insurance brokers, shipping agents and maritime lawyers.
The operations at dangerous goods terminals in Shanghai Port will be suspended during the Shanghai Expo between 30 April and 31 October 2010, except at Yangshan Deepwater Terminal, according to the Yangtze River Administration. Exporters of fireworks will need to apply on a case-by-case basis if they want to use Waigaoqiao terminal.
Video surveillance equipment and other security measures will be in place across the jurisdiction of Shanghai Maritime Safety Authorities by the end of March to raise standards of safety management.
China Development Bank has extended an Rmb80bn line of credit to Wuhan Iron and Steel to finance the development of its recently acquired overseas iron ore assets. So far this year, the steelmaker has signed agreements to explore for iron ore in Madagascar and Australia and taken major stakes in Australian miner WPG, Canada’s Consolidated Thompson Iron Mines and Brazil’s MMX Mineracao e Metalicos.
China is rapidly diversifying its sources of global iron ore to reduce dependence on the world’s three largest iron ore miners, Vale, Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton, which control about three-quarters of global seaborne supply.
China Pacific Insurance (Group) has become the first Chinese insurer to launch a shipping insurance department, reported Shanghai Daily. The move was described as an attempt to take advantage of Shanghai’s ambitions to become a global financial and shipping centre by 2020.??
The Shanghai-based insurer said its shipping insurance department will cover financial losses from shipping risks. In 2008, it took in Rmb1.65bn in premiums from the shipping industry, accounting for 15 per cent of the domestic market.
Air China is to launch direct flights between Chengdu and the Indian city of Bangalore. The connection is designed to promote exchanges in the software industry. Twice-a-week services are scheduled to start in late February 2010, reported China Daily.
Located in south India, Bangalore accounts for about a third of the country’s IT industry value, with multinational giants such as Microsoft and HP located there. For its part, Chengdu is striving to become a regional software centre. Intel and Foxconn had already opened facilities in the Sichuan capital.
Hong Kong port’s cargo throughput fell 4 per cent year-on-year to 64.4m tons in the third quarter of 2009. Within this total, inbound cargo declined 2 per cent to 36.3m tons and outbound cargo fell 7 per cent to 28.1m tons, said the Hong Kong Census and Statistics Department.
In terms of containers, the port handled 5.6m teu, down 16 per cent over last year. Laden containers went down 13 per cent to 4.8m teu, while empty containers fell 28 percent to 0.8m teu.
On the mainland, the southeastern port of Xiamen recorded a healthy October volume of 34,281 TEU. From January to October, its international container transhipments totalled 120,000 teu, ahead of the full-year 2008 total of 100,000 teu. The growth was said to be a result of local government measures to encourage carriers to use Xiamen as a transit port.
Ningbo Port Group and Jiangxi provincial Department of Commerce are jointly promoting a new sea-rail intermodal service from Jiangxi’s capital Nanchang to the coastal city of Ningbo, Zhejiang province. The service operated by Ningbo Port Southeast Logistics is aimed at export-oriented manufacturers in Jiangxi. In March 2009, an estimated 1,000 teu of cargo from Jiangxi was exported via Ningbo.
Ningbo Port Southeast Logistics recently established a branch office in Nanchang, having earlier this year set up a branch in another Jiangxi city, Yingtan.
A railway line in Xinjiang autonomous region that opened in early December is expected to play an important role in expanding cargo transport between China, central Asia and Europe.
The 382km line, known as the Second Urumqi-Jinghe Railway, links the region’s capital Urumqi and Jinghe county. It has a designed transportation capacity of 67.1m tonnes, which is expected to rise to 91.7m tonnes in future. It has a designed speed of 120 kph and cost Rmb2.77bn to build, according to Xinjiang Railway Bureau.
Jinghe is linked by two other railways to Horgos and Alataw Pass, both located on the border with Kazakhstan.
China’s container rail network is poised for major expansion, according to Tsang Yam-pui, an official from NWS Holdings, the infrastructure arm of New World Development. Currently, just 3m containers are carried by rail in China each year, reported South China Morning Post, but that volume is expected to triple by 2012.
NWS is the second largest shareholder in the joint venture China United International Rail Containers (CUIRC), which was established in 2007 to operate China’s container rail network. The largest shareholder is the Ministry of Railways, with smaller stakes held by shipping lines CMA CGM and Zim, and German state rail company Deutsche Bahn.
Only one station is currently operational in the mainland’s container rail network. That is in Kunming, capital of Yunnan province, but next year additional container train stations will open in Chongqing, Chengdu, Xian, Zhengzhou, Wuhan, Qingdao and Dalian. By 2012, a further 10 stations could be operational: in Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Ningbo, Shanghai, Tianjin, Beijing, Shenyang, Harbin, Lanzhou and Urumqi.
The network will link inland cities with China’s sea ports, and could also connect with an overland rail link to Europe. Such a service might carry up to 400,000 teu a year, according to research by consultants Macquarie for CUIRC. Transporting a container from China to Europe by rail might take 21 days, compared with about 32 days by sea, the study indicated.
Jiangsu has installed electronic toll collection (ETC) facilities on 22 more expressways this year, increasing the total to 77, according to local media. This network of ETC expressways now covers almost all of the expressways within its boundaries, including the Beijing-Shanghai Expressway, Jiangyin Bridge and Sutong Bridge.
The technology allows passing vehicles to pay road tolls without having to stop.
Mr Wang Qingyun, Director of Basic Industries under the State Development and Reform Commission, said that the State Council has approved 22 new metro projects in 13 provinces and four municipalities involving a total investment of Rmb882bn. The cities are Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Nanjing, Hangzhou, Harbin, Shenyang, Chengdu, Wuhan, Xian, Chongqing, Ningbo, Wuxi, Changsha, Zhengzhou, Fuzhou, Kunming, Dalian, Nanchang and Qingdao. Between them, the cities will build 79 metro lines totalling 2,260km.
These cities all fulfil government criteria for new metro projects: an urban population of at least 3m, a GDP exceeding Rmb100bn and local government revenue of Rmb10bn or higher. Indeed, China has nearly 50 cities that meet the criteria, according to Mr Wang.
National moratoriums on metro projects were imposed across China in 1995 and 2002 in response to fears of an overheating economy. Some local government officials reportedly expressed relief that their projects have been included in the list after a seven-year ban. They hope that these projects will stimulate the local economy and bring job opportunities for the local population. The cost of building 1km of metro line is estimated at Rmb700m and Chongqing’s No.1 line, approved in the 1990s, was abandoned at the time due to a lack of finance.
Currently, 10 cities in China have metros.
In the late afternoon of 1 December, 15 liquid chlorine containers rolled off a trailer pulled by a Dongfeng truck as it slowly climbed to board a vessel at Shishou vehicle ferry quay in Jingzhou, Hubei province. Two containers fell into the Yangtze River while the remaining 13 were stopped by the ramp. The steel containers measured 2 metres long and 0.8 metres wide.
Senior officials from the local Shishou government, the police, the fire brigade, the maritime safety authority and environment protection agency all rushed to the scene. They cordoned off the area and quickly removed the 13 tanks. Environment officials tested the water and declared that there had been no leakage. MSA officials dispatched two fishing boats with magnetic equipment, and soon after midnight both of the remaining containers had been removed from the water.
Figures released by the Yangtze River Administration under the Ministry of Transport showed that cargo throughput via the major ports along the Yangtze trunkline fell by 7.9 per cent in November compared with the previous month to 95m tons. However, this represented an increase of 22 per cent on the same month last year. Also in November, container throughput rose by 2.9 per cent to 580,000 teu compared with October, an increase of 1.9 per cent year-on-year.
For the January-November period, total throughput was up 10.3 per cent year-on-year to 1.02bn tons, while container throughput fell by 5.2 per cent to just over 6m teu.
PetroChina is to join forces with US oil giant Chevron Corp to explore for natural gas in Chongqing’s Kaixian county, reported China Knowledge. The project is designed to ease the natural gas shortage in Chongqing, with the estimated output expected to be equivalent to the city’s entire consumption.
Earlier in November, the National Development and Reform Commission approved the Luojiazhai gas field project in Dazhou, Sichuan province, involving the same two companies. It is the largest onshore petroleum and natural gas joint venture project in China, with a total investment of US$6bn. PetroChina has a 51 per cent stake in the project, while Chevron owns the remainder.
GKN of the UK has opened has opened a new driveshaft plant in Wuhan, its 11th direct investment in China. The facility is wholly-owned by Shanghai GKN Drive Shaft, a joint venture between GKN and Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation.
Located in Wuhan EDZ, the plant is close to the headquarters of Dongfeng Automotive, one of China’s top four automotive companies. It will supply vehicle manufacturers in central China, including Dongfeng Auto, Dongfeng Peugeot Citroën Automobile, Dongfeng Nissan and Dongfeng Honda.
The Rmb230m facility is scheduled to produce 500,000 units in 2010, rising to 1m by 2011 and 2m by 2012.
A number of leading companies have joined a Wuhan government-led recruitment delegation to look for talent in Beijing and Qinghua universities, two of China’s most prestigious universities. The companies and institutions included Wuhan Iron and Steel, Dongfeng Peugeot Citroën Automobile, Hankou Bank, Wuhan University, Huazhong Science University and Huazhong Agriculture University. Between them, they have about 1,200 job vacancies.
The first meeting on 1 December attracted more than 3,100 graduates. About 10 per cent of them signed an agreement with their potential employers to work in Wuhan, while 10 signed actual employment contracts.
One Qinghua graduate said that the difficulty in securing Beijing residential permits and the expensive housing market should they be employed there are among the main reasons why more and more of his fellow graduates want to leave the capital for major interior cities such as Wuhan.
Pfizer of the US has signed an MOU with Wuhan government to set up an R&D centre in the city. The investment would make Pfizer the first global pharmaceutical company to establish a presence in the area. The company said it was attracted to Wuhan because of its solid research base and high quality workforce.
Pfizer plans to recruit about 200 people for the centre over the next three years. It said the human resource talent in Wuhan was similar to that of Shanghai in terms of English language and research skills, while wages were much lower. The company has more than 360 employees at its Shanghai R&D centre that was set up in 2005.
China Daily saw the move as part of a more general shift by some multinational companies to inland cities for equally skilled, but less expensive workers. The newspaper cited Intel, the world’s largest semiconductor chip manufacturer, which is moving some of its assembly and test facilities from Shanghai to Sichuan province in order to trim costs.
Wuhan Iron and Steel, China’s third biggest steelmaker, has agreed to pay US$400m for 21.5 per cent of MMX, a Brazilian iron ore miner.
As part of the deal, Wisco will purchase at least half of the iron ore to be produced at mines that MMX bought in 2007 and 2008 in south-eastern Brazil. MMX said the mines, some of which are still under development, were expected to reach a capacity of 33.7m tonnes a year from 2013.
Wisco signed a separate co-operation agreement with EBX, MMX’s holding company, under which they will begin preparing a potential joint venture to build a steel mill in Rio de Janeiro state. The mill is controlled by LLX, a transport and logistics company in the EBX group.
Mr Eike Batista, the controlling shareholder of MMX, said Wisco’s investment was the biggest equity stake taken by a Chinese company in a Brazilian company. He said projects under way to increase capacity at MMX and LLX would allow the group to reach exports of 150m tonnes of iron ore a year in comings years — about half the amount currently exported by Vale, the world’s largest iron ore producer.
On 24 November, Philips Lighting formally opened a fluorescent lamps plant in Yizheng EDZ, in the city of Yangzhou in Jiangsu province. Yangzhou is one of the major port cities on the Yangtze River, a short distance downstream of Nanjing.
The Euro60m plant will supply the growing Chinese market as well as other countries; it will be Philips’ largest fluorescent lamp base in Asia.
China’s railways carried about 3bn tons of goods in the first 11 months of 2009, according to the Ministry of Railways, exceeding its target by 64.35m tons. The total number of rail passenger journeys over the same period reached 1.413bn, up 4.4 per cent year-on-year.
Heavy snow in northern and central parts of China in November affected both road and air transport. However, rail transport appeared to be less impacted, with 110m rail journeys made during the month, up 2.8 per cent compared with the same period last year.
Shenzhen-based Jade Cargo has launched an all-cargo service between Chengdu in Sichuan province and the European cities of Amsterdam and Vienna. The twice-a-week service operating on Wednesdays and Saturdays will be increased to three-times-a-week from January 2010. The company will use a B747-400 freighter.
Nanjing will launch direct flights to North America, Europe and Australasia next year, according to the general manager of the Nanjing International Airport, Mr Xu Yong. Currently, Lufthansa is the only foreign airline to operate services out of Nanjing, with its three-flights-a-week direct service to Frankfurt that started in April 2008. In late November, Air China started a Nanjing-Beijing-New York service, while China Eastern launched the Nanjing-Shanghai Pudong-Los Angeles and Nanjing-Shanghai Pudong-Vancouver services.
Mr Xu said that the second phase of airport expansion had recently been approved by the State Development and Reform Commission. A new runway, 3,660 metres long and 60 metres wide, will be built, together with a 200,000 sq metre terminal and 51 landing bridges. It will cost nearly Rmb10bn. By 2020, the airport is expected to have a passenger volume of 30m and a cargo volume of 800,000 tons.
A Yangtze dolphin was found dead in the Xianning, in the Hubei section of the Yangtze on 29 November. About 3.09 metres long and weighing 200 kg, the mammal was estimated to be 20 years old. It was discovered by a crew member of a passing vessel who alerted the local maritime safety authorities. A senior official from the National Nature Reserve in Hubei confirmed that it was a female Yangtze dolphin. Investigations are now being carried out to ascertain the cause of death.
The white-flag dolphin, unique to the Yangtze, is listed as one of the 12 most endangered species in the world. Indeed, it is regarded as functionally extinct. As a result of increased ship traffic, over-fishing and the degradation of its habitat, the Yangtze dolphin population fell to fewer than 150 in the early 1990s from about 400 a decade previously.
The number of coal-carrying vessels from Sichuan province via the Three Gorges that have to lighten in Yichang has increased dramatically since a compulsory lightening rule was enforced on 11 November, according to the Yangtze Maritime Safety Authorities (MSA).
The Three Gorges Dam has increased water levels in the upper reaches of the Yangtze, but the current severe drought in Yichang and other parts of the middle reaches means that all vessels sailing via the reservoir have to lighten in order to sail through safely. They are required to have a draught of 2.8 metres or less, except those carrying dangerous goods that must have a draught of 2.7 metres or less.
By 27 November, 227 coal-carrying vessels had been lightened by a cumulative amount of nearly 190,000 tons. By activating a monitoring station on top of the Yichang-Wanzhou Bridge, the local MSA officials are now able to stop and inspect any passing vessels that they suspect of overloading.
On 22 November, the Yangtze MSA issued an urgent warning to all captains that their licences would be suspended or even revoked if their vessels became stranded because of overloading; they would also receive a fine.
Heavy fog enveloped the Nantong section of the Yangtze on the evening of 1 December, and continued throughout the following day. The local maritime safety authority (MSA) imposed a temporary suspension of traffic, and more than 1,000 vessels anchored in safe waters as requested.
However some small vessels ignored the orders and continued to sail, creating hazards. MSA officials vowed to crack down on transgressors.
A Yichang government website reported that a series of stringent measures are to be announced that will bring together the powers of various state departments to reduce production levels in nine industries deemed to be backward, highly polluting and suffering from overcapacity. The nine offending sectors are power generation, coal, iron and steel, cement, non-ferrous metals, coke, paper, leather and dyeing.
The fact that so many departments, including the State Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Industry and Information and the central bank, are working together shows the determination of the central government to solve the problem
The measures include: blocking the provision of new land for expansion projects in these industries; restraining market demand for high-consumption and high-emission products; banning exports; and setting elimination targets as part of a local government’s performance evaluation. Other measures may include an industry premium on the use of electricity, water and natural gas. A new environment tax could also be levied. Financial institutions will not be allowed to provide new lines of credit.
Local governments could receive severe penalties for not meeting targets. They include a slow-down of national investment projects in the area and a suspension of environmental evaluation, verification and approval processes for local projects. Punishments for companies could involve having their production and waste disposal licences revoked and their power supply cut off.
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