Waterways and ports

Over the past years, Anhui made great progress in improving the navigation capabilities of its trunk waterways, and the construction of tributary waterways. The province also focused on accelerating the construction of some main ports and improving container handling capacity.

The province has 16 ports in all, including five national first-class ports: Wuhu, Maanshan, Tongling, Chizhou and Anqing. Wuhu port, the fifth largest port on the Yangtze River, is an important trading center, and the largest inland port on the Yangtze for coal transport and the largest bulk shipment center in Anhui. It has developed into an important feeder port for the Shanghai International Shipping Center.

In 2018, container throughput at Wuhu Port was 120 million metric tons, and 803,000 standard containers, or twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs), up 14.1 percent year-on-year. The port throughput of the province was 510 million tons, a decrease of 0.2 percent.

Anhui province will create an integrated water transport network in the 13th Year Five-year Plan period (2016-2020). It is expected that by 2020, the total length of four-grade waterways or above will reach 1,800 kilometers, and the province's handling capacity at all ports will hit 700 million tons, of which the container throughput will be 2.8 million standard containers.

At the same time, the province will attach great importance to speeding up the construction of pathways across the Yangtze River, and accelerating the integrated development of cities along the river. A more convenient and reliable cross-river transport system with comprehensive functions and 10 cross-river pathways will be built in Anhui by 2020.

Anhui will promote the renovation of trunk waterways on the Yangtze River, whose navigation capabilities will be further improved, and will renovate more than 1,000 km of high-grade waterways.

Moreover, port construction along the Yangtze River will be advanced, and cooperation between Shanghai, Ningbo and Nanjing ports will be deepened. The province is expected to facilitate major professional development of ports along the Huaihe River, with the aim of further lifting the level of modernization.