China opens its first major river-to-sea canal since 1949 as $10.8B shortcut to Southeast Asia

China opened a major canal on Wednesday that will provide landlocked areas with direct access to the sea, state media said, reducing transport times and costs as the country aims to bolster trade ties with regional neighbors.

The 134-km (83-mile) Pinglu Canal took four years to build and links Nanning, in the southern manufacturing region of Guangxi, to the Gulf of Tonkin, flanked by China and Vietnam.

Goods from southwestern China previously had to be transported to the southern metropolis of Guangzhou in order to reach the sea, but the new canal will cut the journey by more than 560 km, state news agency Xinhua said.

The canal will also reduce transport costs by 18 to 30%, and generate annual savings of more than five billion yuan ($745 million) in the sector, it added.

State broadcaster CCTV broadcast footage of the first barge to pass through the canal and aerial video of ships navigating its calm waters, describing the waterway as "the project of our century".

The waterway is the first river-to-sea canal project planned and coordinated at the national level since the People's Republic of China was founded in 1949, state news agency Xinhua reported. Al Jazeera described it as the first canal of its kind built since the Communist Party took power, and part of the New International Land-Sea Trade Corridor under the Belt and Road Initiative.

The canal "opens up the shortest, most economical and most convenient route" to Southeast Asia and will boost economic development, Xinhua said.

This aerial photo taken on May 9, 2026 shows construction on the Pinglu Canal in Qinzhou, in China's southern Guangxi region. Photo by AFP

The new route is particularly important to rural parts of Sichuan, Chongqing and Yunnan, among others, which are less well-connected than more prosperous regions in eastern China.

Coal, ore, cereals, chemicals, agricultural produce and other materials will now be able to reach foreign markets more easily.

The bulk of the canal's construction work involved widening, deepening and modifying existing waterways, while a small section had to be excavated, Xinhua said.

The project, which began in August 2022, cost a total of 72.7 billion yuan, it added.