The news that the Pinglu Canal is about to open for navigation has highlighted the urgency of upgrading the Youjiang waterway. Whether a fleet loaded with 2000 ton vessels can flow downstream from Baise and connect to the Pinglu Canal via Nanning to reach the Beibu Gulf in the future depends on this 358 kilometer upstream channel.

In the first half of 2026, the freight volume of the Youjiang trunk line increased by 31% year-on-year, and the capacity of the thousand ton waterway is approaching saturation. The pace of upgrading the waterway is continuously accelerating.

The total investment for upgrading 358 kilometers of waterways is nearly 9 billion yuan

The first phase of the Youjiang Shipping Upgrade Project has a total investment of 8.995 billion yuan and will be promoted through a franchise model, including two core sub projects. Among them, 5.129 billion yuan was invested in the regulation of 358 km channel from Baise to Nanning to upgrade the existing Class III 1000 ton channel into a class Ⅱ waterway to meet the normal traffic of 2000 ton ships.

The Jinjitan Water Conservancy Hub Second Line Ship Lock Project has an investment of 3.866 billion yuan to build a new first-class standard second-line ship lock, which can directly meet the needs of 2000 ton ships passing through the lock. The project is jointly led by the cities of Baise and Nanning, and is currently in the preliminary preparation stage. It has not officially started construction yet.

Jinjitan Ship Lock Becomes the Core Node of the Whole Line Campaign

There are four shipping hubs distributed from top to bottom in the section from Baise to Nanning on the Youjiang River. The pressure of waterway regulation in the Naji, Yuliang, and Laokou sections is relatively low. The Jinjitan Water Conservancy Hub, located 8 kilometers upstream of Long'an County, is the core bottleneck that restricts the navigation efficiency of the entire line.

The existing design navigation capacity of the first line thousand ton ship lock has already reached saturation, and the average waiting time for ships passing through the lock exceeds 12 hours. The newly built second line ship lock is closely arranged to the existing first line ship lock, and after completion, it will completely solve the congestion problem of the right river main line passing through the lock.

Multi departmental linkage sprint project start node

At the end of July, the autonomous region established a joint working group of departments and cities to finalize the joint implementation mechanism between the two cities. In August, Baise City launched the preparation of franchise operation plans and inquiry for bidding agency services, paving the way for project investment. On September 4th, the Department of Transport of the Autonomous Region held a special meeting to promote the progress of the project, clarifying that the preliminary work has achieved phased results, but there is still a gap between the overall progress and the established construction target. It is required that all units continue to push forward the bidding and implementation, tackle the construction difficulties one by one, and make every effort to sprint towards the construction milestone. Keywords: inland waterway transportation, waterway upgrading

After the upgrade of the Youjiang waterway, bulk goods in the hinterland of Yunnan, Guizhou, and Guangxi no longer need to detour around the Pearl River Delta, and can be transported directly to the Beibu Gulf via the Pinglu Canal. The logistics cost of connecting to the Yangtze River and reaching the sea in the southwest inland will be significantly reduced, and the development vitality of industries along the river and ports will be completely released.Editor/Cheng Liting