Abstract: Relying on the golden waterway to promote the development of the Yangtze River economic belt is a major strategic measure of China. Giving full play to the role of the main channel of the Yangtze River is a major proposition for the development of the Yangtze River economic belt. The development of the shipping elements such as navigation channels, ports and vessels in the Yangtze River, especially in the middle reaches, is reviewed in this paper. The analysis holds that there are some problems in the development of the middle reaches, such as the navigation channel bottleneck, the limited space for lock throughput capacity of the Three Gorges ship lock, the improvement of the port service system, and the difficulties of the implementation of some projects. Analyzing the development trend of regional economy and society and comprehensive transportation in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River, and considering the characteristics of the transportation development in the Yichang-Wuhan section, the waterway transport volume in different years of the Three Gorges section and the Yichang-Wuhan section is predicted. Some measures and suggestions are put forward to promote the shipping development of the middle reaches of the Yangtze River, including speeding up the construction of the three-dimensional comprehensive traffic corridor along the Changjiang River, improving the network level of the waterways of the middle reaches, speeding up the construction of the Wuhan shipping center, promoting the development of multi-modal joint transportation, and strengthening the related basic researches on the shipping development.