Our country has become a great water transportation country with important influence

“At present, our country has become a major water transport country with an important influence in the world, and is steadily starting a new journey of speeding up the construction of a water transport power,” he said at a press conference held by the State Council's new office on June 24, zhao Chongjiu, vice-minister of Ministry of Transport of the People's Republic of China, introduced the overall development of water transport in our country.
The size of the port ranks first in the world. In 2020, China's port cargo throughput of 14.55 billion tons, port container throughput of 260 million TEU, both indicators ranked first in the world; in the Global Port cargo throughput and container throughput of the top 10 ports, chinese ports have eight and seven seats respectively. The maritime fleet continued to grow in size. By the end of 2020, the capacity of our maritime fleet reaches 310 million dwt, ranking second in the world Cosco Shipping Group and China Merchants Group have reached the first and second place respectively in the global integrated shipping industry.
For many years, the volume of inland river freight ranked first in the world. In 2020, China's Inland River cargo volume of 3.815 billion tons, by the end of 2020, China's inland waterway navigable length of more than 120,000 km, ranking first in the world. For many years, the Yangtze River Trunk Line has become the busiest and largest gold waterway in the world. Scientific and technological innovation has reached the world advanced level. By 2020, a total of 9 container terminals have been built and 7 are under construction. Fully Automatic Container Terminal leads the new trend of smart port in the world. The design and construction technology of automatic terminal and the manufacturing technology of port machinery have reached the world leading level.
Zhao Chongjiu said that the next step will be to promote quality, efficiency and driving forces in the development of water transport. He said that efforts will be made to strengthen weaknesses, increase energy consumption and provide better services, so as to promote high-quality development of the water transport industry and better service for the construction of a new development pattern. Yi Jiyong, head of the Ministry of Transport of the People's Republic of China Water Transport Bureau, said that during the 14th five-year plan period, efforts will continue to strengthen the infrastructure for inland water transport development. It is estimated that about 5,000 km of inland water channels will be added and improved, about 2500 kilometers of new national high-grade waterway length up to standard, effectively removing major bottlenecks and navigation obstruction nodes, so as to further extend the reach.
July 11 was seventeen China National Maritime Day. At the meeting, Zhao also introduced the overall arrangements for the seventeen China National Maritime Day activities, “This year's China National Maritime Day will have the theme of 'starting a new voyage for the maritime industry and creating a new future for the maritime industry' . While efforts are being made to prevent and control the epidemic, local authorities will create new forms of activities and enrich the contents of the activities.”, on July 11, ships owned or operated by Chinese shipping companies were filled with flags and their horns honked at 9am for one minute at the Navigation Day forum held in Kunming, the home of navigator Zheng He, relevant maritime-related organizations hung their flags on the same day in the same manner as ships with full flags, and the Sixth Heath Wire Port International Cooperation Forum was held in Ningbo, Zhejiang Province, from August 10 to 12.
“From 10 to 12 July, in addition to one main forum, there will be six sub-forums, namely the China International Seafarers' Forum, the forum on the coordinated governance and development of River Basin waters, the Forum on high-quality development of Inland River Shipping, the forum on the development of port and shipping enterprises, the China International Forum on ship technology and safety, and the forum on maritime culture. During the forum, we will also hold a 2021 Kunming Zheng He culture and tourism festival in Jinning district, Kunming,” said Zhang Bin, executive vice mayor of Kunming, will be well organized, do a good job related service guarantee work.
Seafarers are an important part of seafarers. On June 25, world seafarer's Day, the Ministry of Transport of the People's Republic of China will release the “China Seafarers Development Report” for the sixth consecutive year. Cao Desheng, China Maritime Safety Administration Director, said at the meeting that the size of China's crew had been expanding in recent years and that by the end of 2020, China had more than 1,716,000 seafarers on board, the largest in the world, with more than 258,000 female seafarers, “Every year, our country sends about 130,000 crew members abroad, which is among the highest in the world and lays the foundation for our shipping to the world.”