Sichuan’s water transport sector aims to complete 6.5 billion yuan in investment by 2026.

On March 13, it was learned from the Sichuan Provincial Navigation and Maritime Work Conference that 2026, as the opening year of the "Fifteenth Five-Year Plan," Sichuan will strive to complete a waterway transportation investment of 6.5 billion yuan, focusing on improving high-grade waterways, optimizing port functions, and enhancing transportation services, accelerating the joint construction of the upper Yangtze River shipping center, and serving the high-quality development of the basin economy. 2025 is the closing year of the "Fourteenth Five-Year Plan," and the Sichuan navigation and maritime system will take the "Smooth One River" action as a starting point, completing a fixed asset investment in waterway transportation of 6.027 billion yuan throughout the year, with the number of new and completed projects reaching a new high in the past decade. The mileage of waterways of grade four and above in the province exceeded 2,050 kilometers, with a waterway cargo turnover of 32.6 billion ton-kilometers, an increase of 11.9% year-on-year, ranking third in the country, and water transportation safety and environmental protection remained stable.

During the "Fourteenth Five-Year Plan" period, Sichuan's water transportation development achieved fruitful results. The province completed a cumulative water transportation investment of 31 billion yuan, added 406 kilometers of high-grade waterways, and the annual average growth of container rail-water intermodal transport was 33%. A batch of innovative achievements such as 5G smart ports and intelligent dispatch systems were implemented effectively, regional collaborative cooperation was deeply advanced, transportation services were precisely optimized, the "Green Navigation Action" was carried out in depth, and water transportation safety and environmental protection continued to improve steadily.

2026 is the opening year of the "Fifteenth Five-Year Plan," and Sichuan's navigation and maritime work will seek progress while maintaining stability, striving to complete a waterway transportation investment of 6.5 billion yuan, improve and enhance 50 kilometers of high-grade waterways, and aim to achieve a 15% growth in cargo turnover and port container rail-water intermodal transport volume, a 10% growth in long-distance transportation of bulk cargo, and ensure no major water transportation safety accidents occur. The Sichuan navigation and maritime system will focus on advancing six aspects of work: continuously improving the policy guarantee of "major focus on water transportation," completing the compilation of the "Sichuan Province Port and Navigation Infrastructure Medium and Long-term Construction Plan (2035)," promoting the issuance and implementation of plans such as the three-year water transportation construction battle; strengthening infrastructure supporting the "basin economy," accelerating the construction of 11 ongoing projects such as the Fujiang Samsung Ship Lock Project, and promoting the opening of 10 new projects such as the Leshan Port Laojiangba Operation Area; continuously optimizing "cost reduction and efficiency enhancement" transportation services, promoting "cargo port integration" operations, actively cultivating boutique demonstration routes for multimodal transport, and increasing the frequency of container liner connections between the main and branch lines of the Yangtze River; strengthening "prevention-oriented" safety management, tightening and implementing the enterprise's main responsibility from the institutional level, carrying out major risk hidden danger investigation and rectification, and implementing the "red, orange, yellow, green" four-color code management for operating vessels; taking up the responsibility of "green and new" water transportation, accelerating the elimination and renewal of old operating vessels, newly building 80 new energy vessels, and expanding application scenarios such as intelligent monitoring, electronic waterway maps, and intelligent auxiliary vessel driving; handling "people-satisfied" water transportation matters well, concluding the construction of 230 "safe ferry" projects with high quality, piloting the advancement of "beautiful ferry" construction, and deepening the "mutual recognition of inspection" of vessel inspection.