China-made ship sets record on Yangtze River

NANJING - A China-made ocean-going container ship has set the record for the largest vessel to sail on China's Yangtze River.

The ship manufactured by the Nantong COSCO KHI Ship is 400 meters long and capable of carrying 20,000 TEUs of containers.

The "COSCO KHI 231," with a deck larger than four soccer fields, can also accommodate a helicopter pad. It tested the water from the shipyard port in Nantong city in East China's Jiangsu province to the river's estuary in Baoshan Port, Shanghai on Sunday.

"The ship's safe cruise on the busy waterway of the Yangtze River signifies the water transport capacity of the Yangtze River deep-water channel, which is crucial to serve the national strategy of the Yangtze River economic belt development," said Hua Xi, an official with the Pilotage Center of the Yangtze River Maritime Safety Administration.

China has improved the deep-water channel of the lower stream of the Yangtze River to over 12.5 meters deep to allow vessels weighing more than 50,000 tons to cruise.

The channel is one of the world's busiest waterway, with the pilotage center in Nantong recording trips by 12,497 foreign and domestic vessels in 2017.