Cash for ports to increase capacity
By Fu Jing (China Daily)
Updated: 2006-03-11 06:48

Port facilities in Shanghai, Tianjin, Guangzhou, Ningbo, Qingdao, Dalian, and Shenzhen will all see major building work, added Qian.

After the port expansion programme is complete, the Chinese mainland will have the capacity to handle an additional 82 million TEUs, 330 million tons of coal, 350 tons of metal ore and 80 million tons of crude oil in 2010.

Coal transportation capacity will be concentrated in North China's ports including Qinhuangdao, Tangshan and Huanghua in Hebei Province and Dalian.

Crude oil capacity will be expanded in Qingdao and Huizhou in Guangdong Province.

And key cities for adding more container handling capacity will be Shanghai, Dalian, Tianjin and Shenzhen.

In the last two decades, multinational firms and the lifting of trade barriers have made coastal regions China's economic powerhouses.

It took Shanghai port only five years to double cargo handling capacity from 200 million tons to 400 million tons. The city's cargo handling record was 443 million tons in 2005.

However, there is still a big gap between Shanghai and Singapore in container handling capacity. The latest statistics show that Shanghai handled 18.09 million TEUs in 2005, rising 24.2 per cent on the previous year. In contrast, Singapore handled 21.2 million TEUs in the first 11 months of 2005, up 8.4 per cent.

Qian urged China to build more factories near its coastlines and main rivers. He quoted figures showing that the money spent on logistics in China accounted for 30 per cent of the aggregate cost of goods, 10 per cent higher than in developed countries.

Armed with adequate technology for environmental protection, he said, coastal regions and the Yangtze River, China's longest waterway, should be top choices for industrial and manufacturing bases because of their transportation connections which give them easy access to the world market.