The State Council recently released its Yangtze River economic belt plan，in a bid to develop it into an inland river economic belt with a global economic influence.

According to the plan, Chongqing has been named as one of the three major shipping centers in China, which will bring new opportunities for European and American investors to expand China's inland markets.

In April of this year, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang inspected four-square-kilometer Guoyuan Port in Liangjiang New Area and praised it as a "first port". He expected that Guoyuan Port could create a kind of "big traffic" pattern, and link the huge markets of the Yangtze River economic belt and the Silk Road economic zone.

As China's first state-level inland New Area, as well as the engine to Chongqing's development, Liangjiang New Area covers Guoyuan Port and Cuntan Port which are located in the golden waterway of Yangtze River, as well as two Bonded Ports which connect to Chongqing from land and sea. Liangjiang New Area is seeking to become China's inland international logistics hub. To this end, Chongqing speeded up international logistics channel constructions – especially the one to Europe – which successfully promoted the rapid growth of Liangjiang's international trade, making it become an important investment destination for foreign investors.

On December 5, 2013, with a planned investment of 10.5 billion yuan, China's largest inland port – Guoyuan Port – officially opened. According to the Yangtze River economic belt plan, Guoyuan Port will launch a railway line connecting with Chongqing-Xinjiang-Europe International Railway in 2015, which will realize railway-water-road through transport.

According to Chen Fuhao, director of the Investment and Development Department, Chongqing Guoyuan Port Ltd, six billion yuan of the 10.5 billion yuan investment has already been allocated. According to the "port in the front and garden in the back" layout, it’s planned to construct 16 5,000-ton berths with an annual throughput capacity of 30 million tons, including two million tons of TEU (Twenty-Equivalent Unit) containers, six million tons bulk cargo, and one million tons of commodity and automobiles.

Guoyuan Port's ambitions do not stop there. According to the information provided by the constructor Chongqing Port Logistics Group, Guoyuan Port aims to become the largest container distribution center, bulk cargo distribution center, commodity and automobile distribution center, bulk means of production trading center and comprehensive services center in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River.

A spokesman for Liangjiang New Area Administrative Committee said that Guoyuan Port is an important platform for Chongqing and building Liangjiang New Area into an inland international logistics hub. Guoyuan Port is close to industrial parks in Liangjiang New Area such as Yufu Industrial Park, which have large logistical demands. In addition, the shipping freight using water transport is much lower, which is 1/20 that of road transport and 1/10 that of railway transport. Therefore, Guoyuan Port will play an important role in connecting the Yangtze River economic belt and Silk Road economic zone, speeding up the inland opening-up and expanding the international logistics platform which connects Eurasia.

 Data released by Chongqing Customs showed that in the first three quarters of this year, Liangjiang New Area's total import and export value reached 258.58 billion yuan ($ 42.3 billion), an increase of 1.1 times. Trade volumes to Hong Kong, ASEAN and EU, which are the top three trade partners, were 65.29 billion yuan, up 2.9 times; 53.71 billion yuan, up 1.5 times; and 34.97 billion yuan, an increase of 6.6 percent respectively.

Liangjiang New Area is becoming an important international investment destination. As the first inland port, Guoyuan Port will make use of its railway-water-road transport advantage to help Liangjiang New Area build an international logistics hub.

By Huang Pei

Edited by Brian Salter