Singapore maintained its No. 1 position with throughput of 6.58 million 20-foot containers in the quarter, while the figure for Hong Kong rose 2.3 percent to 5.50 million containers, the report said.

As the powerhouse of Shanghai's port industry, Yangshan Deep-Water Port achieved record cargo throughput of 420,000 containers in March, up nearly 100 percent year on year. It handled 1.22 million containers in the first three months of the year, the local port authority said yesterday.

The port achieved 145,000 containers of water-to-water transshipments in March, accounting for 34.53 percent of its cargo throughput.

Altogether 563 ships docked at the port in March, including 181 vessels sailing on major international sea routes.

The deep-water port is at the mouth of the Yangtze River, about 45 kilometers from the Pudong International Airport. It is designed to have an annual handling capacity of 25 million containers when the entire project is completed in 2020.

Shanghai will start to upgrade inner river services such as the Hangzhou-Shanghai Line and Suzhou-Shanghai Outer Port Line this year, said Xu Peixing, director of the Shanghai Municipal Port Administration.

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