Transport has issued a document to increase shipping construction, focusing on promoting rail-water intermodal transport and river-sea intermodal transport. The radius of cement transport is expected to be further expanded, and the cross-regional circulation capacity of cement will be strengthened.
Recently, in order to implement the decision-making plan of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council on speeding up the construction of a strong transportation country, building a modern and high-quality national comprehensive three-dimensional transportation network, promote the implementation of the national port and waterway layout plan, optimize and upgrade the national water transport facilities network, promote the high-quality development of the water transport industry, and strive to compose a new chapter on speeding up the construction of a strong transportation country. The Ministry of Transport issued the Opinions of the Ministry of Transport on Strengthening the Planning and Construction of Coastal and Inland Ports and Waterways in the New Era (hereinafter referred to as the Opinions).
The Opinion calls for the organization and compilation of port and waterway layout plans for key regions such as the Yangtze River Delta, Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao, and for provinces with both the sea and the river to coordinate the coordinated development of coastal and inland rivers, ports and waterways. The 11 major ports newly incorporated into the national plan should, in principle, draw up the overall port plan by 2025.
Coastal ports focus on optimizing the utilization of key cargo specialized terminals, multimodal transport ports and stock facilities, and rationally determine construction objectives, key projects and phased implementation plans. Inland water transport focuses on the task of meeting the national high-grade waterway standards of 25000 kilometers, focusing on the two time nodes of 2030 and 2035, defining the development and construction objectives of the region, sorting out key projects, and establishing and improving the promotion mechanism.
The Opinions put forward that we should optimize the main trunk channels, promote the expansion and upgrading of the Yangtze River trunk line, the Xijiang River shipping trunk line, the Beijing-Hangzhou Canal and the Huaihe River trunk line in an orderly manner, and build a main waterway that runs from east to west and radiates from north to south. The Yangtze River trunk line will focus on upgrading the upstream level, breaking through the bottleneck of the middle reaches, optimizing the downstream channels, accelerating the preliminary work and construction of the new Three Gorges waterway, and rationally developing and utilizing the Yangtze Estuary waterway. The main shipping line of the Xijiang River focuses on speeding up the extension of the first-class waterway to Nanning, steadily promoting the expansion of the ship lock capacity, and optimizing the navigation conditions of the sea-going waterway. The Beijing-Hangzhou Canal and the main stream of the Huaihe River will focus on promoting the expansion of ship locks and waterway regulation projects. We will continue to promote the construction of the Pinglu Canal and guide the deepening of the preliminary research and demonstration of the Hunan-Guangxi, Jiangxi-Guangdong and Zhejiang-Jiangxi canals.
We will coordinate efforts to promote the integration of waterways in the Yangtze River Delta region, comprehensively promote the construction of substandard navigation sections focusing on container river-sea intermodal transport corridors, strengthen the efficient connection between river-sea intermodal transport corridors and world-class ports in the Yangtze River Delta, and accelerate the construction of inland waterways such as the Dalu Line and the Hangzhou-Ningbo Canal. Optimize and upgrade the Pearl River Delta waterway network, focusing on accelerating the construction of Beijiang and Dongjiang waterways, upgrading the grades of Shunde and Liansharong waterways, and efficiently linking up the world-class port groups of Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao.
The Opinion also requires that, in accordance with the principle of "overall planning and advancing one by one" and in line with the needs of transport development, the construction of unreached sections of tributary waterways should be vigorously and orderly promoted to enhance the accessibility of trunk and branch waterways. We will speed up the construction of key waterways such as the Ganjiang River, the Hanjiang River, the yuanshui River, the Wujiang River, the Jialing River, the Minjiang River, the Tuohe River, the Youjiang River, the Beipanjiang-Hongshui River, the Liuqianjiang River and the Minjiang River, which are in the critical stage of reaching the standards of the whole line, and coordinate the construction of other tributaries of national high-grade waterways and international navigable rivers. Coordinate and guarantee the use of water for shipping, promote the construction of inland waterways, promote the integration of shipping and water resources, and realize the comprehensive utilization of water resources.
Optimize the transport structure, strengthen the bulk transit railway and transit water, and effectively reduce the logistics cost of the whole society. Focus on the construction of comprehensive transport system, give full play to the comparative advantages of water transport, and promote the integrated development with other modes of transport. Open up the blocking points of multimodal transport, strengthen the overall planning and effective connection between various modes of transportation and port hubs, and strive to improve the comprehensive service level of ports. If the new bulk cargo and container operation areas are qualified, the construction of inbound railways shall be planned and constructed simultaneously. Focusing on rail-water intermodal transport and river-sea intermodal transport, we should strengthen transport organization, information sharing and rules convergence, and vigorously develop a multimodal transport system with "one single system" and "one box system" as important carriers. We should guide and encourage port and shipping enterprises to develop high-quality, specialized and full-chain customized logistics services, actively develop whole-process logistics and supply chain management, and develop specialized logistics such as cold chain, commodity automobile and chemical industry.
In recent years, domestic cement demand has fallen sharply due to the decline in real estate investment and the slowdown in the growth of fixed asset investment. The industry expects that domestic cement production will fall below 2 billion tons in 2024, and domestic cement demand will drop to about 1 billion tons in ten years.
With the decline in demand, the competition in the cement market has become increasingly fierce. Since the beginning of this year, a price war has broken out in many places in China, and the price of cement once fell below 200 yuan/ton. Even the former hot spots in the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta have not been spared .
Due to the fierce market competition, the cross-regional flow of cement has increased. Not long ago , Guangdong and Guangxi cement clinker even went to the northeast to open up the market . For
a long time, cement has been recognized as a "short-leg" product. With the advancement of water transport construction, the capacity of the main transport corridors such as the Yangtze River and the Xijiang River has been improved, and with the implementation of rail-water intermodal transport and river-sea intermodal transport, the radius of cement transport has been increasing. The regional characteristics of the cement market are expected to be further broken in the near future.
