China Business

Jun 1, 2006

Ports capacity seen to grow 80% by 2010

YANTAI - The throughput capacity of Chinese seaports will grow more than 80% from the current 2.89 billion tons in the next five years, according to Vice Minister of Communications Xu Zuyuan. Meanwhile, the annual throughput of Chinese ports, including seaports and river ports, will total 7.2 billion tons by 2010, up from 4.85 billion tons in 2005, Xu said Monday at a national conference on port safety.

With a soaring national economy, China has been investing heavily in port construction in recent years. Statistics by the Ministry of Communications showed that China had more than

1,400 ports in 2005, ten of which had a throughput capacity of 100 million tons or more. The total throughput of all Chinese ports has topped the world for the past three years.

At present, 90% of the freight associated with China's foreign trade is shipped by maritime transportation, and foreign trade volume accounts for 80.2% of China's gross domestic product, Xu said.

"The ports face new safety problems along with their expanding throughput," Xu said. According to him, the throughput of dangerous goods, which accounted for 13% of the total in 2005, has grown by 20% annually in recent years. Xu promised that by making the port companies the major parties responsible for safety, the safety of Chinese ports would reach or approach the level of middle-income nations by 2010. Specifically, for every thousand port staff employed, fewer than 0.04 persons would be killed by workplace accidents in a year.

(Asia Pulse/XIC)

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