[photopress:shanghai_port_containers.jpg,full,alignright]Shanghai Port is now the second largest container port in the world. Or, more accurately, it is the second in the number of standard containers handled. It reached 5.885 million standard containers in the first quarter of this year which is a rise of 28% year on year.
How long before it moves into first place?It is the first time that the quarterly statistics have hurled it to to world second place so the answer is ‘not long’.
Singapore currently leads the charge with Shanghai second. But seven of the world’s top 20 container ports are in China, and their growth rates are outstripping the rest.
Container traffic in Shanghai and seven other major Chinese ports grew an average 53% a year between 2003 and 2005, according to figures provided by Busan Port in South Korea.
In recent years China has poured billions of dollars into new port facilities at Shanghai, Shenzhen, Qingdao, Ningbo, Tianjin, Guangzhou and elsewhere. New deepwater ports and more and bigger berths have freed China from relying on foreign ports to ship its own goods.
The list of the world’s major ports, of course, changes all the time. It is not that many years ago that Hamburg was at the top of the list. How long before Shanghai gets top place? Shanghai has doubled throughput in four years so a reasonable bet is that next year it will move to first place and a certainity is that it will do it the year after. Where is the serious competition? All within China.
Source: People’s Daily Onine and International Herald Tribune.