According to CCTV News, this morning (September 16), the Pinglu Canal, a backbone project of the New International Land-Sea Trade Corridor, was officially opened to navigation.

Construction of the Pinglu Canal began on August 28, 2022, with a total investment of about 72.7 billion yuan. The canal is 134.2 kilometers long. It starts in the north at the Pingtang River mouth in the Xijin Reservoir area of Hengzhou City, Nanning, runs south through Lubu Town in Lingshan County, Qinzhou, and follows the Qinjiang River to the Beibu Gulf. Three major cascade hubs—Madao, Qishi, and Qingnian—have been built along the route. The canal was constructed to Class I inland waterway standards and can accommodate 5,000-tonne vessels, making it the canal with the highest navigation class in China.

The project has set four “world’s best” records: the strongest navigation capacity among similar canals in the world, the fastest lock passage speed among similar ship locks in the world, the highest water-saving lock drop in the world, and the largest inland water-saving ship lock in the world.

According to Xinhua News Agency, the Pinglu Canal directly connects inland waterways with the sea, marking a distinctly pioneering development in China’s modern canal construction. Since the founding of the People’s Republic of China, newly built canals in China have mostly served functions such as connecting inland river systems, supporting regional shipping, and diverting and transferring water. Ni Yuping, vice dean of the School of Humanities at Tsinghua University, said the Pinglu Canal combines the dual functions of domestic inland trunk-line transport and international ocean-going foreign trade, expanding the functional boundaries of China’s modern canals.

After the canal is completed and opened to navigation, goods from southwestern China shipped to the sea via the canal will have their inland voyage shortened by more than 560 kilometers compared with traditional routes. Voyages to major ASEAN ports will also be greatly shortened, comprehensive logistics costs will drop by 18% to 30%, and more than 5 billion yuan in transport costs will be saved for society each year. The completion and opening of the Pinglu Canal are of great significance for advancing Guangxi’s drive to build a strong maritime economy, promoting the large-scale development of the western region in the new era, and serving the building of a closer China-ASEAN community with a shared future.