Landmark Pinglu Canal Advances High-standard Opening Up

The Pinglu Canal, a landmark project four years in the making, opened on September 16, giving China's landlocked southwest a direct route to the sea and overseas markets.

The 134.2-kilometer canal connects Nanning, capital of south China's Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, with the Beibu Gulf, the nearest sea access point for much of southwest China. It is China's first major river-to-sea canal project to be planned and coordinated at the national level since 1949.

The canal links inland rivers with the sea, a pioneering feature in China's modern waterway construction. As a backbone project of the New International Land-Sea Trade Corridor, it opens the shortest, most economical and most convenient route from Guangxi and China's southwest to the sea.

World-class engineering and smart management

The canal can be navigated by 5,000-tonne vessels, making it the highest-grade river-sea connectivity canal in China and the world to date. It is built to inland waterway Class I standards, with hub ship locks designed for a 100-year service life.

"The project has exceeded industry standards and surpassed national standards, forming more than 300 high-level technical indicators," said Cheng Yaofei, chairman of Guangxi Pinglu Canal Construction Co., Ltd.

To overcome a natural drop of 65 meters in the water level, the canal has three cascade hubs: Madao, Qishi and Qingnian. The Madao hub is the world's largest inland water-saving ship lock and the world's highest-drop water-saving ship lock. The working valves at the Madao and Qishi hubs are the fastest of their kind, opening in just one minute and closing in only 30 seconds. Both hubs use a stacked three-tier water-saving pool system, the first of its kind in the world, with the water-saving rate exceeding 60 percent.

With a world-first technology, four world records, 21 major technological innovations and more than 220 invention patent applications, the canal has contributed a "Chinese solution" to global modern canal construction.

Its full-lifecycle digital management model is also a first in China's canal construction history. Yan Qiang, head of the science and technology information department of the Pinglu Canal Group, said the canal has a monitoring system based on BeiDou, cloud computing and AI. The monitoring screen at the dispatch center displays risks related to slopes, hubs and navigation in real time, enhancing navigation safety. Once navigation begins, AI algorithms will help generate optimal plans for lock chamber allocation and water-level regulation, with risks assessed in advance.

Economic benefits and regional connectivity

Goods from southwest China shipped via the Pinglu Canal will cut inland shipping distances by more than 560 km compared with the traditional route through Guangzhou Port in the south. Overall logistics costs are expected to fall by 18 to 30 percent, saving over 5 billion RMB annually.

The cost reductions are already drawing investment. In the first half of this year, the Nanning section of the Pinglu Canal Economic Belt signed 133 new projects, with total investment reaching 56.56 billion RMB.

The canal changes southwest China's waterway access from a detour to a direct route, bringing the hinterland and ports closer. It also rewrites southwest China's seaward path, opening the most economical and convenient corridor to ASEAN. The canal fills the inland water transport gap in the Western Land-Sea New Corridor, completing a multimodal framework of river, rail, sea and road. It connects southward to ASEAN and northward to Eurasia, linking with the China-Europe Railway Express and rail-sea intermodal transport to deepen industrial and supply chain integration among Belt and Road partner countries.

According to Malaysia's national news agency Bernama, the canal is expected to strengthen trade links between western China and ASEAN and create new opportunities for Malaysian businesses through enhanced connectivity with Guangxi's Qinzhou hub.

From a century-old vision to a modern waterway, the Pinglu Canal stands as a landmark project in China's waterway construction history, opening a new chapter of connectivity, cooperation and shared development for China, ASEAN and beyond.

Source: Science and Technology Daily