The Yangtze River, the longest waterway in China, has entered its "golden days" for shipping, a transport official said on Friday.

The development of the waterway is facing favorable conditions and an important strategic chance, said Jin Yihua, director of the Yangtze Shipping Administration under the Ministry of Communications, at the Yangtze International Inland Shipping Forum.

The central government has decided to speed up the construction of the "golden waterway" of the Yangtze as the nation is planning to develop the shipping industry.

The ministry has listed shipping along the Yangtze River as a key task of transportation development in the 2006-2010 period. It planned to earmark 15 billion yuan (1.92 billion U.S. dollars) for waterway management and port construction projects to boost the shipping capacity of the river.

As the longest river of China and the third longest of the world, the 6,300 km-long Yangtze River links west, central and east China. It is the most developed and the busiest river with the largest transport scale among Chinese rivers.

In 2006, the total cargo amount shipped via the river reached 990 million tons, up 15 percent from a year ago.

Jin expected the Yangtze River to play a more important role in 2010 in transportation when more than 1.3 billion tons of goods would be transported on the river.