Chinese ports rally by the start of the New Year

A view of Shanghai Yangshan Deep Water Port Photo: Yang Hui/GT

A barometer of China's economic vitality, ports in China rally by the start of the New Year, latest data showed.

In January, cargo throughput at ports rose 17.4 percent year-on-year to 1.29 billion tons, and container throughput increased 13.2 percent to 23.77 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs), according to data from the Ministry of Transport (MOT), the Xinhua News Agency reported on Tuesday.

During the Lunar New Year holidays, from February 11th to the 17th, the port of Guangzhou, capital of South China's Guangdong Province, worked day and night. On the New Year's Eve, five roll-on/roll-off ships were neatly docked at the wheeled cargo terminal on Shazai island, Xinhua's report noted.

On the same day alone, the port of Guangzhou completed cargo throughput of 1.24 million tons and container throughput of 30,300 TEUs. The total number of ships entering and leaving the port reached 56, an increase of 19 percent compared to the same period last year.

Separately, the port of Qingdao, in East China's Shandong Province, also saw busy loading and unloading operations during the holidays. A total of 621 ships completed docking and departing with a y-o-y increase of 29.11 percent, while cargo throughput reached 12.47 million tons and a 12.8-percent growth from the year before.

In fact, prior to the holidays, some Chinese sea ports had seen a massive line up of containers filled with Chinese good to satisfy the appetite of foreign clients.

The container terminal at Yantian Port in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, reached its limits and led to serious congestion with nearly 300,000 containers being stockpiled at the port, hitting a record high, the Global Times reported earlier this month.

The port, which handles one third of Guangdong's foreign trade shipments and one quarter of China's exports to the US, said that slow operations of foreign ports amid the COVID-19 pandemic and earlier shipment of exports ahead of the Spring Festival caused the backlog.

China's ports registered stable growth in cargo throughput last year despite the impact of COVID-19, data from the MOT showed.

In 2020, cargo throughput at ports rose 4.3 percent year-on-year to 14.55 billion tons, according to the ministry. The country's container throughput at ports in 2020 stood at 260 million TEUs, a yearly increase of 1.2 percent.