China opens $10.8B canal, cutting transit time to Southeast Asia
83-mile-long Pinglu Canal runs from Nanning, capital of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, to Beibu Gulf
BEIJING, China (MNTV) – China opened a new canal Wednesday, bypassing land routes and providing inland provinces with faster access to Southeast Asia in a move expected to boost trade.
The 134.2-kilometer (83.39-mile) Pinglu Canal runs from Nanning, the capital of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, to the Beibu Gulf, also known as the Gulf of Tonkin, the closest maritime outlet for much of southwest China, state-run Xinhua News Agency reported.
According to official estimates, the canal was built at a cost of 72.7 billion yuan ($10.8 billion) and eliminates a detour of more than 560 kilometers (348 miles) by replacing the existing inland waterway route.
The Pinglu Canal marks the first time since the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949 that a canal has linked the country’s rivers directly to the sea, the report added.
Since construction began in August 2022, the canal has been “equipped with a tiered navigation zone system to facilitate the movement of inland vessels, allowing qualified vessels to travel through the canal and into the sea without transferring cargo to another ship,” the South China Morning Post reported.
Cutting transit time to Southeast Asia, the canal is expected to boost trade between the world’s second-largest economy and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), China’s largest trading partner as a bloc.
China has remained the 11-member bloc’s largest trading partner for 17 consecutive years, with bilateral trade reaching $1.05 trillion last year.
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