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Water storage in the Three Gorges reservoir area will help revive the declining shipping industry along the Yangtze River, according to the chairman of China's largest private shipping company.

Known as "golden waterway," the Yangtze, with a length of over 2,800 km, is the main artery of China's water transport. The river carries almost 80 percent of the total freshwater freight in the country.

However, ships of 10,000 tons can only navigate 1,143 km from the mouth of the Yangtze in the east to Hankou Port in central China's Hubei Province.

The water in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River is too shallow and the upper reaches have many dangerous shoals. "Only the Three Gorges Project can solve the problem," said Lu Guoji, chairman of Minsheng Shipping Co. Ltd..

"Water storage in the Three Gorges reservoir area will offer new opportunities," said Lu.

The first water storage in the Three Gorges Project will be carried out next June. By then the Three Gorges Project will be generating power and be open to ships.

Once the dam is built, all the dangerous shoals in the area will be submerged and Chuanjiang River, part of the Yangtze River in southwest China's Sichuan Province, will be 40 percent deeper than its present water depth of 60 meters. The river will be twice as wide and the flow velocity will decrease 50 percent from the present 1,000 cubic meters per second to 500 cubic meters per second.

"By then ships of 10,000 tons will sail safely from Yichang (in the middle reaches) to Chongqing (in the upper reaches)," said Lu.

Experts predict that by 2009 when the depth of the Three Gorges reservoir reaches 175 meters, the cost of shipping on the river will decrease by 35 percent, increasing the volume freight of the river fivefold.

The US-based automobile manufacturer, Ford, has chosen Chongqing, the largest city along the upper reaches of the Yangtze River as its base to enter China. Ford has decided to rely on the waterway as its main means of transport. Many large companies in the area, including Changhong Group, and Wuliangye Group, have turned to the waterway to transport their products.

The Yangtze Shipping Group plans to extend its shipping business to the sea to meet the needs of the exporters along waterway.