Oceanic Complex of Half Century

Journalist: Xiao Mei

Qian Yongchang, Chairman of China Communication and Transportation Association, Deputy Chairman of Chinese Institute of Navigation, Consultant of China Federation of Industrial Economics and Senior Consultant of China Association of Port-of-entry, is working as professor of Dalian Maritime University, Shanghai Maritime University, Shanghai Jiao Tong University and Wuhan University of Technology, etc as well. He graduated from Dalian Maritime University while he was 20 years old, he became one of the first generation captains, and was working successively as the General Manager of COSCO, Director of Ocean Bureau of Ministry of Communications and Minister of Ministry of Communications, etc. He has made outstanding contributions to the communication and transportation of China, particularly the ocean shipping.

The location of interview with Chairman Qian Yongchang is his office in Beijing, a photo of Chairman Qian in captain uniform and a ship model are put at an evident place of the bright and clean office. He smiled and said, “recall the 70 years of life journey, the one that I feel most gratified is that I have taken navigation as my career pursued for life in my adolescence, and I have devoted and contributed the 20 years from 20 to 41 to the ocean after graduation from the maritime college. I have realized the greatness and true meaning of navigation from my own experiences after long time navigation practices and various experiences, I have learnt a lot from my experiences of being a captain and my life is thus enriched.” Qian Yongchang has made outstanding contributions to the development of communication and transportation of China, particularly the development of ocean shipping, and he could be called a real pragmatic leader. While talking about his personal experiences, Qian Yongchang said, “I dare not to be slack with the changing of positions and management scope from captain to minister and to the current chairman, I am learning continuously in a step by step manner, I am making efforts to be adapted to the requirements of the new post, although I have changed a lot of positions, the motto of maintaining my principle is never changed.” We have profoundly felt the kindness, talkativeness and sagacity of Chairman Qian from a short conversation of more than one hour, and we have learnt a lot from his rich but weather-beaten life experiences and his subtile understanding toward the development of communication and transportation……

Below is the conversation between Chairman Qian and the journalist:

Journalist: as the former minister of Ministry of Communications and the current Chairman of  China Communication and Transportation Association, you have been always working at the frontier of the communication cause of China, we could say that you have witnessed every step of development of the Chinese communication and transportation, then please talk about what achievements have been achieved during the development of communication and transportation of China?

Chairman Qian: in 2005, the railway length in operation has been 75000 km; the length of highway open to traffic has been 1.9 million km, and the expressway length has been 40,000 km, which is ranked in the second place in the world; the length of inland rivers open to navigation and traffic has been 123,000 km, including 8800 km of above thousand ton; there are 944 berths in the whole country with berthing capacity of above 10,000 ton, the cargo throughput has been more than 5 billion ton, which is ranked in the first place in the world, the container throughput has been approximately more than 78 million standard containers, and these two throughputs have been ranking in the first place in the world continuously for 3 years; the total mileage of civil aviation open to air traffic has been 2.05 million km. The comprehensive transportation is being formed. That’s to say the achievements achieved since the reform and opening-up of the Chinese communication and transportation construction have alleviated the contradiction between supply and demand in transportation that has been existed for a long time to a certain extent. Generally speaking, the development of the Chinese communication and transportation has been transferred from the “restricted type” to the “capacity mitigation type”.

Journalist: it has been 20 years from your taking office of Chairman of China Communication and Transportation Association in 1994 up to now. Please introduce what kind of tasks have been performed by the association in promoting the comprehensive transportation?

Chairman Qian: for a long time, the transportation management system is intersected, therefore, as a national and comprehensive transportation association, we shall make more efforts in “comprehensiveness”. For example, investigations are performed and suggestions are proposed in the aspect of transportation development strategy, development planning and policies and regulations, etc, to provide references for the decision-making of the government and to exert the assistant and advising function of government. The association has always insisted on advocating and promoting the development of comprehensive transportation system, and making efforts in the aspect of collaboration of various transportation methods to exert the function of communication bridge. We shall both recognize the development tendency and tread the heels of times transformation, follow the steps of national development with times, be a good assistant of the government and provide good services for the enterprises.

Journalist: there is a very close relationship between the port and the urban economy, and now more and more people start to pay attention to the topic of port-neighboring economy, as an expert leader with many years of practical experiences in ocean shipping, could you please talk about your opinions about the port-neighboring economy?

Chairman Qian: under the development tendency of increasingly expanding global economic integration, the port is playing more and more important roles in the global economic development, the functions of ports have been constantly and correspondingly changed as well, and the correlation between the port and economy is becoming closer and closer. Nowadays under the development tendency of increasingly expanding global economic integration, the port is displaying its special status and function ever than before. The port industry is the basis and pioneer industry of the national economy, which is capable of providing powerful support and guaranty for the development of other industries. It’s also an important basis for the economic development of the city, area and hinterland where the port is located. The port is an industry with very high social correlation degree as well, it plays an important role in the economic development and social progress of the city, area and hinterland where the port is located, at the same time the economic prosperity of the city, area and hinterland where the port is located is an important support for the development of the port. And it has fully reflected the relationship of “revitalizing the city with port, port serves city, port rejuvenates city and port takes pride in city”.
As for the topic of port-neighboring economy, I think importance shall be attached to the following several points:

（I）The concept of port serving for the economy of the city and area where the port is located must be clearly established, and the operation of port must take the development of urban and regional economy as ultimate purpose, therefore, the construction of logistics industry system of the port must be emphasized and strengthened, and only by doing this, could the port serve the hinterland economy more effectively.

（II）The city proper shall construct a smooth and efficient comprehensive transportation system for the port. The construction of the port and the comprehensive transportation system must be synchronous and matched.

（III）The port construction orientation of taking the realization of modern logistics terminal as the strategic target shall be clearly established.

（IV）Under the market-oriented prerequisite, administrative and legislation means shall be employed to build the conditions and environment beneficial to the improving of circulation rate and regional economic benefits in port operations.

The improving of the port efficiency is not only related to the loading and unloading operation capacity, but also closely related to the customs declaration efficiency and cooperation from relevant industries. According to the scientific development concept of sustainable development, particular attention shall be paid to the issues of environmental pollution and environmental protection in urban economic development. These functions shall be relied on the organization from the government, they are unnecessary conditions of improving efficiency and benefits as well and they are the environmental conditions must be created by a modern port.

Journalist: great achievements have been achieved in port construction since the reform and opening-up of China, and could you please introduce the current development status and the development pattern in future of the Chinese ports?

Chairman Qian: currently, the port pattern of “rational layout, hierarchical level and well-equipped functions” has been preliminarily established; a professional and efficient transportation system covering four major cargos of coal, crude oil, ore and container has been established, and the scale and intensified group with the five major areas of Around Bohai Region, Yangtze River Delta Region, Southeastern Coast Region, Pearl River Delta Region and Southwestern Coast Region has been established. The cargo throughput of major costal ports in 2005 in China has reached 4.85 billion ton, which is 25.5 times of the one in 1978, and among them the foreign trade throughput is 1.25 billion ton, which is 21.1 times of the one in 1978, the throughputs of 10 ports have surpassed 100 million ton, and the throughput of Shanghai Port is ranking the first in the world. The port cargo throughput and container throughput of China have been continuously and stably ranking in the first place of the world since 2003. The accumulated cargo throughput of scale ports in China has reached 2196.25 million ton from January to June in 2006, which is increased by 18.4％ than the same period of the previous year. And among them, the throughput accomplished by the coastal ports is 1640.92 million ton, which is increased by 17.6％ than the same period of the previous year; the throughput accomplished by the inland river ports is 555.33 million ton, which is increased by 20.9% than the same period of the previous year.

Tianjin Port has been the first to perform the port system reform in 1984 under the leadership from the State Council, and all of the 14 major coastal ports have accomplished the structural reform by 1987 except Qinhuangdao, and the system of “double leadership with the local as superior” is implemented. From 2002, the port administration system and port modern enterprise system have been preliminarily established under the leadership form the Ministry of Communications and local governments, which have laid the system foundation for the leapfrog development of the ports. The State Council made an important decision of building the “Shanghai International Shipping Center” in 1995, and the Central Government of CPC made the decision of building Dalian Northeast Asia Important Shipping Center in the Northeast while making the important strategic of revitalizing the northeast old industrial bases in 2003, and Premier Wen Jiabao emphasized to “continuously exert the functions of economic special regions and Shanghai Pudong New Zone and promote the development and opening of Tianjin Binhai New Zone” again in the government work report delivered in this year, which have continuously proposed strategic tasks toward the port cities.

Journalist: with the continuous development of economic globalization, the logistics industry is developing rapidly, could you please talk about the development status of the logistics industry in China and the relationship between the communication and transportation industry and the logistics industry?

Chairman Qian: the modern logistics came into birth in the middle and latter period of 1990s, with the rapid and sustainable development of the Chinese economy and the maturation of the Chinese information and network technology, it’s rapidly developed under the instruction from the government and the guidance from the market, and it has been developed into the reasonably and rapidly developing period from the preliminary period in 1990s.

The transportation is in complete harmony with the logistics, and they are in a relationship of mutual promotion and mutual development. The development of the modern logistics must pose revolutionary influences and transformations to the transportation, and the transportation and information are two major factors of running through the entire process supply chain of the modern logistics. Here I want to emphasize that the birth of modern logistics is impossible if without the scientific development of information technology, and hereby we could know the importance of information network technology.

Currently, the accessibility degree of the Chinese transportation facilities is not high, the capacity of main transportation channel is inadequate, and the loading and unloading, transit and coupling facilities of various transportation methods are still not smooth enough. The operation level of logistics information basis is not high enough, which fails to fully play the neural function in logistics activities. At the beginning the logistics service could only solve the issue of transportation, and the scope is gradually extended to packaging, value-added services, moving, loading and unloading, warehousing and customs clearance and allocation and delivery, etc by the beginning of 1990s, the entire commodity circulation is comprehensively considered and operated as a complete field, however, the transportation is still at the core of these operations. Due to the development of information technology, the extension from “real-time supply” and “zero stock” logistics service to pre-production and after-consumption could be realized, and sustainable development has been achieved on internationally transportation and logistics integration. As an important link in transportation, the transportation enterprises have gradually developed into the third party logistics supplier and it’s an important task for the Chinese transportation industry undertakers to consider how to adapt to the logistics demands, how to provide services beyond transportation among the entire process of logistics organization.

The intermodal transportation technology is an important means of performing comprehensive utilizations on the communication and transportation facilities. The transportation resources of China are relatively scarce, so that the active development of the intermodal transportation technology and equipment that organically linking with various transportation methods has an important role in improving the logistics efficiency of the entire society and reducing the logistics cost. Great progresses have been achieved by the countries with developed logistics, and we shall carefully learn experiences from them.

Journalist: based on the above-mentioned circumstances, could you tell us about the major problems to be solved urgently in the development process of the Chinese logistics? Could you talk about your opinions?

Chairman Qian: I consider that in order to properly develop the Chinese logistics industry, first of all, the governmental shall play the role of macro instruction, support and coordination in logistics development. The experiences of logistics development in different countries of the world have shown that markets and enterprises are major forces in the logistics development of enterprises, however, the government is endowed with indispensable roles in logistics development. China is in particularly demands of macro planning, policy instruction and department coordination from the government, to promote the healthy development of logistics. Secondly, the policy and regulation system beneficial to the logistics development shall be gradually established. According to the principle of the market economy, the management on logistics from the state shall be mainly realized through the means of economy and laws, to provide a good operation environment for the enterprises and constantly establish and perfect the policy and regulation system in pratices. For example, the demarcation of logistics enterprises and the admittance and retreat of the market; tax paying projects of logistics enterprises and how to avoid repeated tax payment; how to simply the customs clearance procedure and how to increase the customs clearance speed, etc. Additionally, more efforts shall be made in speeding up the construction of logistics park. Efforts shall be made in cultivating and fostering some modern logistics enterprises, exerting the model function and the logistics standardization construction shall be strengthened, a standardization system for the equipment and facilities shall be formulated, and this kind of system shall be connected to the international environment as much as possible, and attentions shall be paid to solve these problems at the beginning of logistics development. The tasks of realizing the leapfrog development of the Chinese logistics are pretty heavy. However, I believe that better development must be achieved by the Chinese logistics industry by adopting necessary and powerful policy measures and making efforts in accomplishing the following several tasks:

However, among all these conditions, I think the logistics management techniques could be fully utilized and the logistics markets could be better established only after constantly improving the understanding toward the accuracy of logistics and establishing correct ideas.

No matter while holding the position of Minister of Ministry of Communications in the past or the current position of Chairman of Communication and Transportation Association, Qian Yongchang is always devoted to the communication and transportation industry of the country. While talking about the ocean shipping cause of China, the Chairman with the captain background expressed his unique feelings in the conversation, he calls that “very deep navigation complex”. He thinks it’s impossible to have the current economic globalization if without the ocean shipping, that is to say the ocean shipping is the original basis of the global economic integration. It’s reasonable that we believe that China Communication and Transportation Association must better exert its functions of assistant, consultant and bridge terminal, must provide more valuable services for the government, the society and the industry and must create more economic benefits and social benefits under the leadership and guidance of Chairman Qian, a leader full of strong inspiration force and personal charm.