Yangtse mouth deepening starts

A long-awaited project to dredge the Yangtse river mouth so Shanghai can become an international shipping centre has begun. The present phase of the project, which began on Wednesday, would cost 3.27 billion yuan (about HK$3.04 billion) and would deepen the channel from seven metres to 8.5 metres, Xinhua said yesterday. It would also involve the building of two dykes, one 12.7 kilometres long and the other 20 kilometres long.