An aerial drone photo take on June 1, 2024 shows a view of the Yangluo Port in Wuhan, central China's Hubei Province. [Photo/Xinhua]

The ports along the trunk stream of the Yangtze River, China's largest and the world's third-longest river, are expected to handle a record 4.02 billion tonnes of cargo in 2024, thanks to the country's economic resilience.

"The 3.9-percent year-on-year growth cements the Yangtze River's position as the busiest inland waterway in the world," said Huan Zhaoping, deputy director of the administration of navigational affairs on the Yangtze River under the Ministry of Transport, on Thursday.

This marks the first time the combined throughput along the east-west inland waterway, often called China's "golden shipping route," exceeds 4 billion tonnes.

The Yangtze River now boasts 16 major ports, each with an annual cargo throughput exceeding 100 million tonnes.

The scale and growth of the throughput highlight the huge resilience of China's economy, said Xiong Yu, another official at the administration of navigational affairs on the Yangtze River.

Preliminary official data showed that in 2024, the Yangtze River ports handled 26.21 million 20-foot equivalent units (TEUs), 850 million tonnes of coal, 130 million tonnes of oil and gas, and 110 million tonnes of grain, among other materials.

The shipping landscape along the Yangtze is also undergoing structural changes.

Peng Shuhua, deputy chief of the Yangtze River Shipping Development Research Center, said that foreign trade is expanding faster than domestic trade and the proportion of bulk commodities is declining, while that of manufactured products, particularly electric vehicles, lithium-ion batteries and photovoltaic products, are on the rise.