China, Laos, Myanmar, and Thailand invested a lot of money for road and port construction in recent years. Laos, Myanmar, and Thailand also favorably support the motion proposed by China to further develop water transportation in the Joint Navigation conference held by these four countries. After a decade of development in international navigation, these four countries have directly gained significant economic benefits and indirectly gained social benefits. From 2000 to 2009, the Lancang - Mekong developed a lot. Its shipping cargo increased from 500 tons to 50 thousand tons; and the goods transported also developed from the single category to container cargo , heavy lifts and refrigerated fresh products. It also offer international travel service and other varieties of integrated transport services. With the rapid development of transportation, the number of ships used for international transportation also increased from 8 to 115 . And the largest capacity of a ship also increased from 80 tons to 380 tons.