Yichang Develops as Yangtze River Trade Gateway

October 2, 2008 Posted by China Briefing Reading Time: 3 minutes

Oct. 2 – Yichang, the ancient Hubei trading town sited on the Yangtze River just downstream from the Three Gorges Dam, is poised to boom as the city makes it’s presence felt as the gateway to the Three Gorges and the subsequent river trade it controls. At the west of China’s Hubei province,Yichang is where the middle and upper reaches of the Yangtze River are divided. Thanks to its advantageous geographic location, Yichang has been defined as a distributing center, an important trading port and a transportation hub along the Yangtze river linking West Hubei and East Sichuan since ancient times.

The city, which also borders Sichuan and Northern Hunan, is continuing a brisk pace of development as it controls access to the huge domestic markets of Chongqing to the southwest. The city’s largest single operator Yichang Port Group, which covers about 25 percent of all river trade, controls 12 kilometers of shoreline along the Yangtze River and one square kilometer of land, along with 57 berths. It houses the largest feeder port for phosphate in the country and is one of the four railway-river transshipment hub ports for coal along the Yangtze River. YPG handled 7.3 million tons of cargo last year, including 3.9 million tons of coal and 31,789 TEUs. YPG has just been invested in by Hong Kong listed PYI, who purchased 51% of the company earlier this month for an estimated US$22 million.

“Yichang will play a significant role in the implementation of our Yangtze strategy. There will be operational synergy between YPG and the other port investments of PYI along the Yangtze River Region. We are confident that barring any unforeseen adverse situation the investment will generate profit right from the outset,” says PYI Managing Director Tom Lau. YPI have already invested significantly in other Yangtze River Ports, including investments in Yangkou, Nantong and Wuhan. It runs a bulk terminal in Nantong and a LPG terminal in Wuhan, and is also building a nine-berth bulk terminal in Yangkou which will become operational by the end of this year. Yichang however has become its biggest Yangtze Rriver asset.

Upgrading of the city infrastructure has been continuing for some time. With a population now of just over 4million, transportation and communication in Yichang are developing rapidly, with major highways linking the city to Shanghai in the east and Tibet in the west. “The Golden Water Route” of the Yangtze runs through Yichang and it reaches Wanzhou and Chongqing in the west and Wuhan and Shanghai in the east. The express rail service links Yichang to Wuhan, Beijing, Xi’an and directly to Zhengzhou, Wuxi and Guangzhou. Yichang is also the site of an international railway container transport terminal, while the new Yichang airport provides direct flights to all regional and most major Chinese cities and is serviced by five Chinese airlines.

Since 2002, Yichang City has been the home of the China Three Gorges University (the result of the merger of the University of Hydraulic and Electric Engineering, Yichang and of Hubei Sanxia University), the largest comprehensive university in Hubei province outside Wuhan, with over 20,000 full-time students. The city is fueled entirely by the Gezhouba Hydra Project (Gezhouba Dam) and the Three Gorges Dam. In 2009, when the Three Gorges Project is fully completed, Yichang City will develop into the main port for goods transiting Hubei and Chongqing. Along with the Yangtze development area, Yichang is also a regional rail cross-section and is building a national economic development zone, with bonded warehousing, to support this.

Businesses looking at distributing to and selling onto the massive markets of Central China would do well to consider Yichang as a strategic regional hub.

This article was aggregated from the new China Briefing Regional Guide to Central China, priced at US$25 plus p&p and covering the provinces of Henan, Hubei, Hunan, Inner Mongolia, Jiangxi, and Shanxi and the regional cities of Batou, Changsha, Hohhot, Kaifeng, Nanchang, Taiyuan, Wuhan, Yichang and Zhengzhou. It is available for purchase immediately after the October National Holidays. Pre-publication orders can be placed through sales@china-briefing.com.