East China’s Jiangsu province has started the expansion and renovation of old and dangerous ship locks on the North Jiangsu section of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal. A ceremony was held Tuesday morning in Huai’an city.
The north Jiangsu section of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal is the "golden waterway" with the highest density of ships, the largest throughput of ships, and the largest cargo volume in China's inland waterways.
Most of the 28 ship locks were built in the 1960s, with an average service life of nearly 60 years.Ten ship locks were built 40 years ago, accounting for over 30% of the total.
These old ship locks can no longer meet the requirements of large-scale and intelligent development of ships, and have become a "bottleneck" and "weakness" that restricts the transformation and improvement of shipping, the high-quality development of navigation industry, and the modernization of shipping construction.
“In addition to the Huaiyin No.2 Shiplock, Zaohe No.1 Shiplock and Siyang No.1 Shiplock have also been included in the renovation plan for dangerous old shiplocks. During the 14th Five Year Plan period, we will renovate all shiplocks that have significant safety hazards and operational efficiency issues”, Ren Qiang, Director of the North Jiangsu Navigation Management Office of the Jiangsu Provincial Department of Transportation, said.
