China plans to invest 16 billion yuan (nearly US$2 billion) in the next 17 years to improve navigation conditions in the main trunk water route of the Yangtze River, its biggest waterway, through dredging and building new navigation facilities and other means, officials said Wednesday.

An official in charge of the Yangtze Navigation Channel Bureau said the massive clearing will be the largest they had worked on.

According to a program on Yangtze navigation development, projects will involve navigation channels totaling 2,838 km in length from the port of Shuifu in Yunnan Province, southwest China, down to the mouth of the Yangtze near Shanghai.

The 6,300-km Yangtze River, China's longest river, accounts for 40 percent of the country's river traffic.

At least 30 major places of shallows of the waterway will be dredged with silt to be cleared and sunken boats salvaged. And navigation related facilities, including navigation marks, lanterns, and ports, will be upgraded or built in different phases.

In the dry season, ships are unable to travel through the shallows, and some even run aground.

China invested less than 3 billion yuan (nearly US$400 million) in improving the navigation channel in the Yangtze River during 1949 and 2000.

(Xinhua News Agency March 25, 2004)