In the next 20 years, China will spend more than CNY200 billion upgrading river transport infrastructure as it seeks to boost domestic trade amid weakening export demand from the West. Deputy Transport Minister Xu Zuyuan said that expanding river transport was a major focus of the development of the shipping sector. For the 12th Five Year Plan to 2015, Beijing had prepared a CNY45 billion fund to expand waterways and invest in river ports in central and western regions, Xu said. CNY5 billion was also set aside to standardize river shipping. “Investing CNY45 billion in waterways will lighten the burden on roads. For example, when ships can’t pass through the Xi river [in Guangdong] in the dry season, the roads get congested,” said Xu. He called on local governments to increase their investments in waterways. Hunan’s government this month launched a CNY170 billion plan to invest in expanding the landlocked province’s river infrastructure over the next 20 years. To build waterways and ports, Hunan has budgeted CNY68 billion for the next 10 years and CNY102 billion for the following decade. Of the planned CNY170 billion of investment, CNY132.7 billion will be injected into waterways, including the Yangtze river and Xiang river, while CNY34 billion will be invested in ports such as Yueyang and Changsha. On November 23, Shandong province published its plan to accelerate river transport, under which CNY14 billion will be invested by 2015. The province plans to renovate and build 350 kilometers of waterways to increase the length of Shandong’s navigable waterways to 1,500 km by 2015, with throughput capacity exceeding 70 million tons and shipping capacity reaching 8.8 million DWT. Shandong plans to complete a network of waterways linking the Pacific Ocean with rivers by 2020. This includes expanding the capacity of the Grand Canal from Hangzhou to Beijing to accommodate 2,000-ton ships. Transporting goods along the Yangtze river is at least 50% cheaper than by road. On October 27, Gansu province announced plans to construct 654 km of waterways to extend the landlocked province’s navigable waterways to 1,010 km by 2015, and to further extend them to 1,346 km by 2020, the South China Morning Post reports.