Establishment of a Three Gorges Ecological and Economic Cooperation Zone to serve as a regional logistics center for the Yangtze River Economic Belt was included in the 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-20) that came into effect on Wednesday.

The zone, which stretches across the provinces of Hubei and Hunan, and the city of Chongqing, covers an area of about 70,000 square meters. It starts at Yichang, Hubei province, in the west, and includes Changde and Zhangjiajie in Hunan province in the south and Chongqing's Wanzhou district in the east.

The establishment of the zone is essential to alleviate growing traffic on the Yangtze River, said Cai Hongzhu, a National People's Congress deputy from Hubei province who has been closely watching the zone's development.

The lack of Three Gorges' navigation capacity has severely restricted the critical waterway's functioning, Cai said.

"The establishment of the zone will allow the integration of the road, railway and waterway of the area to effectively alleviate the bottleneck problem," Cai said.

Coordinating various modes of transportation, the zone can serve as a regional logistics center between the upper and middle reaches of Yangtze River, Cai said.