"Sailing Zhejiang" connects rivers and flows smoothly to seaports.

The golden autumn sunlight shines on the Babao Lock in Hangzhou, Zhejiang, outlining the unique contours of waterways in Jiangnan. This is the nation's first double-lane, thousand-ton-grade ship lock in a strong tidal river section, also the central hub connecting the Qiantang River to the second channel of the Grand Canal. Watching fully-loaded cargo ships pass through the lock gates one after another, Li Chuanzhen, an experienced captain with over 20 years of experience, remarked that it now saves one to two days compared to the old canal route: "The navigation conditions are good, and it only takes about an hour to pass through the lock."

Zhejiang is a major province for water transportation, endowed with advantages of rivers, lakes, and seas. Since the beginning of this year, Zhejiang has focused on the core goal of "transferring one hundred million tons via water and quadrupling growth," comprehensively advancing the high-level construction of "Shipping Zhejiang," improving the water transport logistics network connecting rivers to the sea, and effectively supporting high-quality economic and social development.

Driven by the mechanism promoting "Shipping Zhejiang" service, Zhejiang's waterway network upgrading and capacity expansion have accelerated. The Jinhua section of the Qiantang River and the Wucheng section have passed completion acceptance, adding 8.7 kilometers of thousand-ton-grade inner waterway. The Huzhou section of the Beijing-Hangzhou Canal obtained project codes and completed survey and design tendering, while the Jiaxing section is advancing agreements between two provinces. Construction of short branch waterways like Meitai Port and Miaohu Line has commenced. Inner river port capacity enhancement has also entered the "fast lane," with seven port projects like the Xingguang operation area in Haining, Jiaxing, completed, adding 46 berths of over 500 tons for inner waters.

Since the beginning of the year, Zhejiang has continuously adjusted its transportation structure to accelerate the shift from road to waterways. It established databases for key enterprises including cargo owners, ports, and shipping, adding six new inner river container routes such as Zhapu–Nanjing Qiba and Xiasha–Nantong. This brings the total number of routes to 90. The Quzhou–Zhapu foreign trade route has achieved containerized service operation, opening a pathway for inner river foreign trade to "set sail right at the doorstep."

Eco-friendly and intelligent features are hallmarks of a modern inner river transport network. This year, Zhejiang formulated the "Implementation Plan for Green and Intelligent Development of Zhejiang Inner River Ships," issuing details on provincial carbon peak subsidies, providing overlapping support for new inner river new-energy cargo ships, adding 30 new new-energy ships. Zhejiang established the country’s first green shipping corridor for river-sea combined transportation, adding two zero-carbon routes such as Xiasha–Zhapu, and built 109 sets of shore power facilities at ports.

Focusing on deeper integration of waterway transportation and tourism development, Zhejiang issued the "Zhejiang Province Waterway Transportation and Tourism Integration Action Plan (2026–2030)," created high-quality passenger routes, initiated the construction of Hangzhou’s waterway transportation and tourism integration experimental zone, and introduced nine convenient measures for the high-quality development of the inner river yacht industry. In the first three quarters of this year, the provincial inner river passenger transport volume reached 12.87 million trips, an increase of 16.2% year-on-year.

On the journey to vigorously advance the construction of world-class strong ports and high-level "Shipping Zhejiang," a modern water transport logistics network seamlessly connecting rivers and seas, radiating to the central plain, and linking trillion-scale industries is rapidly taking shape.