A project has been launched march 18 on a deep water channel at Zhanjiang Harbor in south China's Guangdong Province.

The project will be built in two phases. The first phase is expected to take about eight months and involves the dredging of a38-meter section with the bottom as wide as 140 meters to allow ships of 100,000 dwt to enter to harbor.

At the second phase, the bottom of the channel will be expanded to 170 meters to allow ships of 150,000 dwt to enter.

At the same time, preparations are underway for the construction of an oil dock and an ore dock scheduled to start in the later this year, and in 2001, respectively.

Upon completion of these projects, Zhanjiang Harbor will have an additional annual cargo handling capacity of 20 million tons, becoming the leading deep-water port in southern China.