The Yangtze River, a major transportation artery connecting the three major economic zones of Southwest China, central China and East China, has become the golden waterway with the busiest inland river transportation and the largest volume in the world for many consecutive years. The thousand-year-old river, known as China's golden belt, serves as an important link between the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road. Its development is considered a major strategy bearing on the country's overall development, that is, the Yangtze River Economic Belt, which covers 11 major provinces and cities. If the long eastern coastline is like a longbow waiting to be fired, then the Yangtze River Economic Belt is the sharp arrow coming out of the air.

Yangtze river economic belt covers Shanghai, jiangsu, zhejiang, anhui, jiangxi, hubei, hunan, chongqing, sichuan, yunnan and guizhou in 11 provinces, area of about 205 square kilometers, accounting for 21.4% of China, 40% of the population and economy are all over China, across the east China Midwest three steps, and the ecological status of important and strong comprehensive strength and development potential is huge. According to the national plan, the Yangtze River Economic Belt will form a development pattern of "one axis, two wings, three poles and multiple points". Xiao Hanping, a senior researcher at the Yangtze River Economic Belt Research Institute at Renmin University of China, said the Yangtze River Economic Belt, which is the center of China's economy and the source of its vitality, has both unique advantages and an unshirkable mission in building a new development pattern.

Smooth traffic corridor

Economic development, traffic first. After more than 30 years of construction and development, it has become the consensus of provinces and cities along the Yangtze River that the Yangtze River Corridor relies on the Golden Waterway, takes the ports along the river as the hub, develops various transportation modes such as waterways, railways, highways and air, and speeds up the construction of a comprehensive three-dimensional transportation corridor. As an important means of transportation to strengthen regional connections, high-speed railway can be said to be the "two arteries" of the Yangtze River Economic Belt, stimulating the development potential of the Yangtze River Economic Belt.

On the morning of Sept 28, 2022, a mobilization conference was held in Nanjing to mark the start of construction of the Jiangsu section of the Shanghai-Chongdu-Rong high-speed railway, marking the official start of construction of the railway along the North River. It is known that the Shanghai-Chongdu-Rong high-speed railway has a total length of more than 2,000 kilometers, passing through Chengdu, Chongqing, Yichang, Jingmen, Wuhan, Hefei, Nanjing, Nantong, Shanghai and other key cities. It connects the Yangtze River Delta, the middle reaches of the Yangtze River and Chengdu-Chongqing city clusters. It is the region with the most development vitality and potential in China, and it is also a major ecological corridor. According to the relevant person in charge of railway office of jiangsu province, north jiangsu section of the high-speed along the Yangtze river is the eastern section of high-speed corridors along the main channel, fill the blank of the the north shore of the Yangtze river in jiangsu region of the high-speed rail, which between Shanghai and nantong section is in the channel and coastal channel elements, also, shanghai-nanjing intercity railway network in Yangtze river delta, shanghai-hangzhou-ningbo "Z" glyph is an important part of the main shaft, It plays an important role in supporting the integrated development of the Yangtze River Delta.

Railway access, prosperity of all industries. The high-speed railway along the north River is like a giant pen, drawing a "flying dragon of steel" along the coastline of the Yangtze River. According to the Jiangsu Provincial Department of Transportation, the high-speed railway along the North Yangtze River will organically connect economic, ecological and tourism resources along the Yangtze River, becoming a backbone facility to support the construction of the Yangtze River Economic Belt and an important support for the Yangtze River Delta to radiate the central and western inland areas. Looking into the future, the Jiangsu section of the North along the Yangtze River high-speed Railway will play an important role in improving the regional competitiveness of cities along the Jiangsu route, promoting the efficient allocation of resource factors, and driving the economic and industrial development.

Cross mountains and rivers from the grand plan, vertical and horizontal own Lingyun pen. In the historical coordinate of our railway development, the Yangtze river delta from the aorta to the capillaries, railway construction, the weave the dense significantly improved the railway network covers the breadth and depth of insight, increasing "people in the adults, cargo" pratt & Whitney, and changing the time and space concept, reconstructed the economic landscape, Railways are also increasingly becoming a strong driving force behind the accelerated integration of this most economically dynamic and densely populated region.

At present, all 14 ports along the Yangtze River have started construction of iron-water combined transportation projects. The length of high-grade waterway of trunk branch lines of the Yangtze River has reached tens of thousands of kilometers, and the "water expressway" is becoming increasingly smooth. The Wuhan-Yichang section of the Shanghai-Chongdu-Rong high-speed railway along the river has officially started construction, and the he-’an high-speed railway, the An-Jiu-Chengdu high-speed Railway and the Chengdu-Chongqing high-speed Railway have been put into operation. The "Yangtze River Economic Belt on track" is speeding forward. Chengdu Tianfu Airport and Wuhu Xuanzhou Airport have been put into operation, and the air transport network continues to expand, forming a multi-point support for the transportation artery of the Yangtze River... The comprehensive three-dimensional transportation corridor continues to improve, and the combined transport of molten iron, river and sea, and multimodal transport work together to unleash the potential of the golden waterway. In 2021, the cargo throughput of ports on the Yangtze River trunk line exceeded 3.5 billion tons, ranking first in the world.

Connecting the Belt and Road

The Yangtze River Economic Belt, formed by the Yangtze River, has taken off like a dragon, emitting unique advantages and huge potential. Xu Changle, executive vice president of the Yangtze Basin Development Research Institute, believes that the Yangtze River, which integrates the coastal, coastal and inland opening, is a link linking the Belt and Road and has unique advantages of two-way opening from east to west.

Turning the whole basin into a golden waterway is becoming a reality day by day. At Yangluo Port in Wuhan in the golden autumn season, the long arms of longmen cranes are dancing and trucks are shuttling endlessly, making the golden waterway of the Yangtze River increasingly busy. Every day, goods are gathered here from all directions, and from here, they are transported across the sea or to different places. At 15:00 on October 1, 2022, in front of the video surveillance command platform of Wuhan Xingang Customs, Wang Ying, section chief of the port Monitoring Department, held an intercom and coordinated the rapid shipment of 101 new energy vehicles on site. At 22 o 'clock that evening, the cars boarded a container ship to Norway. This is the first time for Yangluo Port to export new energy vehicles.

"Now our direct flight business is particularly booming, during the National Day are busy!" Xu Huiqin, deputy general manager of Wuhan Xingang Datong International Shipping Co., LTD., said happily that in the past two years, the export sources of direct international flights mainly came from the provinces. Rivers flow, its potential in smooth. Relying on the golden waterway to promote the development of the Yangtze River Economic Belt, logistics facilitation is crucial. Starting in 2022, goods from Jiangxi's lithium batteries and Hunan's bamboo chopsticks, as well as more and more goods from neighboring provinces and cities, will be shipped overseas from Yangluo Port. In the first three quarters, Wuhan Customs supervised a total of 16,528 TEUS of inbound and outbound goods by direct flights from Jianghai, an increase of 95% year-on-year. The changes Xu Huiqin mentioned are not only due to the opening of new shipping routes, but also due to the strengthened regional cooperation among the customs departments of Hubei, Jiangxi and Hunan. Through the "three-port linkage" of Yangluo Port in Wuhan, Chenglingji Port in Yueyang and Jiujiang Port, they serve the coordinated development of the middle reaches of the Yangtze River, and the potential of the golden waterway is constantly released. Zhen Hong, secretary-general of Shanghai International Shipping Research Center, said that with the prominent function of the Yangtze River golden waterway, the golden waterway is releasing the gold effect. There are 14 ports along the Yangtze River with a total of 100 million tons, and the annual cargo volume of the trunk line exceeds 2.3 billion tons.

Known as the "thoroughfares of nine provinces", Wuhan is the strategic junction of the Yangtze River Economic Belt and the Belt and Road. It is a super city of comprehensive transportation that integrates national transportation channels and hubs such as iron, water, public transportation and air transportation, and bears the important mission of building a strong domestic market and leading the rise of central China. The person in charge of the freight Department of Wuhan Transportation Bureau introduced that Wuhan's outstanding comprehensive traffic location advantages endowed Wuhan with a strong ability to build a logistics hub city.

With the joint efforts of international direct flights, Jiang-sea combined transportation and multimodal transportation, Yangluo Port plays an increasingly prominent role as the core port of the shipping center in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River, laying a solid foundation for Hubei to become an important hub of domestic and international double circulation. In July 2022, a new Korea-Wuhan-Europe transit trade channel was opened in Hubei Province, enabling goods from the ROK to transfer seamlessly to China-Europe freight trains at Yangluo Port for delivery to countries along the Belt and Road. In September, the number of direct international routes from Yangluo Port increased to three. The sirens of new international routes have sounded, with more big ships heading for deep blue. Now, products from Hubei and neighboring provinces and cities are being exported to other parts of the world in a week, down from nearly half a month.

Ma Xiaoyan, deputy director of the Institute of Industry and Economics at the Chongqing Academy of Social Sciences, believes that Chongqing in particular, as a natural link between the Yangtze River Economic Belt and the Belt and Road, constitutes the overall pattern of China's all-round opening-up. The "Chongqing-Xinjiang-Europe" international railway logistics channel starts from Chongqing, then passes through Xinjiang to Alashan Pass on the Chinese border, enters Kazakhstan, and then transfers to Russia, Belarus, Poland, and reaches Duisburg in Germany, covering a total distance of 11,179 kilometers. Yang Liqiong, deputy director of the Commission of Economy and Information Technology of Chongqing Municipality, said that the Great China-Europe passageway truly connects the Yangtze River Economic Belt and the Silk Road Economic Belt, and is considered as a true dragon vein of China's national strategy, connecting the eastern, western and eastern parts of China, and the overseas parts from the eastern and western ends respectively.

Xu Ning, executive deputy director of Shapingba District of Chongqing, China, where the starting point of the "Chongqing-Xinjiang-Europe" international trade channel is located, revealed that as a strategic node of the Yangtze River Economic Belt and the Belt and Road, the Logistics Park in Western China is forming a diversified multimodal transportation system with railway as the core, connecting major international and domestic economies through various ways. To become a comprehensive international and domestic logistics hub for the Yangtze River Economic Belt and even China, and a new platform for Asia-Europe trade cooperation based on the Yangtze River Economic Belt.

At present, China's Yangtze River Economic Belt is accelerating its synergy with the Belt and Road, becoming the foundation and booster for the implementation of the Belt and Road strategy. Previously, China's National Development and Reform Commission has said that belong to the area along the Yangtze river economic belt system, the Yangtze river economic belt as a national strategy, is not only beneficial to a domestic industry gradient transfer, on the other hand, can be connected to the silk road economic belt, west XiangDongKe docking with the maritime silk route in the 21st century, are highly complementary, along the area and port logistics, enterprise is expected to double benefit. The Yangtze River Economic Belt (YREB), connecting the east and west with the Yangtze River and the sea, is embarking on a new voyage of development. The YREB will connect with the Belt and Road in a more open manner, connect the world and become a new force leading the high-quality development of the Chinese economy. Editor/He Yuting