The container ship Jicheng Maotong 888 travels along the Oujiang River. [Photo/Tide News]

The container ship Jicheng Maotong 888 set sail from the Qili Port in Yueqing, a county-level city in Wenzhou, heading upstream along the Oujiang River to the Wenxi Port in Qingtian county, Lishui, on Dec 25.

This marked the start of the Wenzhou-Lishui sea-river intermodal transport route. It's the first container shipping line on the Oujiang River, and enables faster waterway transport between the two places.

Sea-river intermodal transport involves moving goods via inland waterways to coastal ports, where they are then transferred to sea vessels, or vice versa. This method offers advantages such as larger capacity, lower costs, and less energy consumption.

The route currently uses the Wenxi Port as the inland transport hub and the Qili Port as the sea-river transfer point. The inland vessel has a cargo capacity of 1,097 metric tons and operates every two days over a distance of approximately 60 kilometers.

Statistics show that Lishui's annual bulk cargo transport volume is 20 million tons, with a foreign trade container transport volume of 100,000 twenty-foot equivalent units. In 2023, Lishui established its first container terminal in Qingtian, laying the foundation for sea-river intermodal transport between the two places.

"One ship can now carry the load of more than 30 trucks, significantly reducing transport expenses," said Yin Limin, general manager of Qingtian Port Service Co.

According to Huang Bowen, deputy general manager of Wenzhou Port Group Co, during the policy guarantee period, there will be zero waterway transfer fees between these two ports for businesses.