The largest bulk carrier to grace the waters of the Lancang-Mekong River made its debut on Sunday in southwest China's Yunnan Province.

The ship was domestically built by the Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture's Yunnan Jinghao Shipbuilding Company. The carrier is 61.5 meters long, 9.5 meters wide and weighs over 300 tons. It is designed to sail at a speed of 25 kilometers per hour and carry at least 600 tons of cargo.

To help improve the efficiency of shipbuilding and ensure the quality of the ship, the company introduced new software that builds upon the traditional industry already in place in the river basin.

After Chinese President Xi Jinping proposed the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) seven years ago, the local government of Yunnan has been vigorously improving and upgrading the waterway of Lancang River, which in the eyes of many logistics companies is a precious business opportunity.

Hence, the Xishuangbannan Ten Thousand Sunny International Logistics Company invested over 5 million yuan (about 750,000 U.S. dollars) to build the ship.

"We built the ship mainly in response to the Belt and Road Initiative, for Lancang River is the golden waters and also has the golden waterway. So after we finished building these ships, we can better and more conveniently transport bulk goods, speeding up the trade flow on our side," said Huang Zhipeng, chief executive of the logistics company.

The BRI is for promoting common development through better connectivity among countries and regions and has been morphing into a solution for speeding up global cooperation for greater prosperity.