Recently, to promote high-quality port development and encourage resource conservation and intensive use, five departments—the Ministry of Transport, the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Natural Resources, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, and the Ministry of Water Resources—jointly issued the Notice on Accelerating the Renovation and Expansion of Coastal and Inland River Port Wharves (the "Notice"), to accelerate wharf renovation and expansion work, clarify relevant support policies, and achieve simultaneous advancement and two-way efforts in renovation/expansion and new construction.

■ The Notice specifies that priority should be given to four categories of projects: wharf class upgrading, specialization transformation and cargo type adjustment, release of reserved hydraulic structure capacity, and automation and intelligent transformation. At the same time, port enterprises are encouraged to upgrade and renovate collection and distribution system facilities and equipment, renovate supporting facilities such as storage yards and transit warehousing, and improve the transfer, handling, collection, and distribution capacity for bulk commodities such as grain; improve the level of green technology, prioritize the use of clean energy and new energy, accelerate the construction or renovation of shore power, oil and gas recovery, enclosed and semi-enclosed dust suppression and other facilities in accordance with laws and regulations, promote coordinated efficiency improvement in energy conservation, pollution reduction, and carbon reduction, and continuously improve production efficiency and safety and environmental protection levels.

■ The Notice reasonably optimizes the procedural requirements for wharf renovation and expansion, and proposes measures in three aspects: accelerating project approval processing, optimizing engineering design review, and actively promoting project implementation. These include accelerating approval, verification, or filing procedures; clarifying specific circumstances under which preliminary design and construction drawing design may be carried out in combination, and wharf reserved hydraulic structures may not require new design approval; and specific measures such as strengthening guidance on engineering construction and acceptance.

■ The Notice also strengthens policy support and element guarantees for wharf renovation and expansion, and proposes measures in five aspects: increasing support for land and sea use, strengthening policy support for environmental impact assessment approval, accelerating policy support for soil and water conservation and flood assessment approval, accelerating policy support for navigation assessment review, and strengthening funding guarantees. Specific measures include accelerating approval processing or incorporating projects into green channels, reasonably defining approval categories, highlighting review priorities, and optimizing approval processes.‍

To coordinate the organization and implementation of wharf renovation and expansion work, the Notice also makes arrangements in three aspects: strengthening organizational leadership, strengthening supervision and management, and strengthening publicity and guidance.