Guangdong port city to play a key role in developing China's western region

China's new land-sea corridor for its less-developed western region is creating new opportunities for Zhanjiang, a port city in South China's Guangdong province, to serve as an important starting off point.

According to a development plan, unveiled by the National Development and Reform Commission on its website in August, Zhanjiang will build a network of railways, roads and air connections to link the inland northwestern region to major ports in the south.

It aims to speed up the opening-up of the region and deepen its economic and trade ties with the outside world.

Zhanjiang, a port city in South China's Guangdong province, is striving to become a major engine of modern coastal economic development. Lang Shuchen / For China Daily

Zhanjiang is located in western Guangdong, but geographically neighbors the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region and is separated from Hainan province by a strait.

It has been included in the new massive land-sea corridor plan, in which it's required to place much emphasis on leveraging its role as a traditional estuary for the southwestern region, and becoming a better linkage point with the Yangtze River economic belt.

The central government will support the upgrading of the Zhanjiang Port to develop bulk cargo and cold-chain transportation, to build large-scale professional wharves for dry and bulk cargo and to carry out dredging projects at the port's entrance.

Zhanjiang Port is the first modern port the nation developed after the founding of the People's Republic of China, and has played a key role in the city's opening-up and in the national Belt& Road Initiative.