Cargo vessels are seen on a river in Huzhou, East China's Zhejiang province. [Photo/hz66.com]

Huzhou in East China's Zhejiang province has made remarkable progress over the years in expanding its inland water transportation system.

With Huzhou Port listed among the country's 36 major inland ports, the city has implemented measures to encourage enterprises to adopt water transportation over roads, simplified ship certificate applications, and provided subsidies for shore power usage to bolster the industry's growth.

In 2017, Huzhou became the first city in Zhejiang to merge seven different certificates required by ships into a single certificate. Furthermore, this reform has now been promoted across the entire Yangtze River Delta region.

Consequently, the application processing time has dropped from 29 to seven workdays, and the number of required application materials per ship has fallen from more than 160 to fewer than 10, according to an official at the Huzhou Port and Shipping Management Center.

As of May, 2,972 such certificates had been issued in Huzhou, saving around 120 million yuan ($16.75 million) in fees for companies.

In addition, the city has taken steps to facilitate the replacement of diesel with electricity in its port operations.

In June 2022, the city introduced China's first fiscal subsidy policy for shore power usage, providing nearly 20,000 sailors with special electricity rates of 0.31 yuan per kilowatt-hour, which is lower than what ordinary residents pay.

In the first five months of this year, Huzhou's shore electricity consumption has increased by 55 percent, reaching 308,000 kilowatt-hours and ranking first in Zhejiang.

The provision of financing services and other initiatives have also played a role in Huzhou's inland water transportation expansion.