Shenzhen Port's annual container throughput reached 30 million TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent units) for the first time last year, according to a press release from the city’s transport bureau yesterday.
Shenzhen has become the fourth port to exceed 30 million TEUs in annual throughput worldwide, following the Chinese ports of Shanghai and Ningbo-Zhoushan, and Singapore.
In 2022, the port saw its container throughput reach 30.0356 million TEUs, up by 4.39% year on year and ranking fourth globally for the 10th consecutive year.
Wang Guowen, director of the Logistics and Supply Chain Research Institute of China Development Institute, said that a city’s port throughput is a barometer of its economy. Surpassing the 30 million TEU mark shows Shenzhen’s economic resilience amid external uncertainties and the pandemic. It further strengthens the city’s position as a shipping hub with global influence and also indicates that Shenzhen’s efforts to build a shipping network in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA) have yielded positive results. He believed that in the future, Shenzhen still has more potential in terms of shipping finance, insurance and service trade.
The port’s exemplary performance was partly attributed to the opening of transshipment routes with port cities in the Pearl River Delta area under the Combined Port Program, according to Xu Min from the transport bureau’s shipping department.
In 2022, Shenzhen Port opened a total of 11 combined ports and completed shipment of 7.35 million TEUs under the program, up by 2% year on year.
The port has also adopted sea-rail transport mode with inland cities. In 2022, it added six inland ports to its sea-rail transportation network, which handled a total of 230,000 TEUs, up by 3% year on year.
Shenzhen Port also opened three Shenzhen-Hong Kong cross-border sea transportation routes in February last year to ensure supplies of fresh products and daily essentials to Hong Kong, which was hard hit by resurgence of COVID cases. A total of 1.44 million TEUs carrying 6.88 million tons of cargoes were shipped through the Shenzhen-Hong Kong sea routes. Companies involved in cross-border railway and sea transportation services received subsidies of over 30 million yuan (US$4.36 million) to cover logistics costs.
In 2022, Shenzhen opened four new international freight routes, bringing the total international sea routes to 295.
The port accelerated the construction of infrastructure projects in 2022, including Phase I of the eastern operation area of Yantian International Container Terminals and Phase II of Dachan Bay’s container berth project, which will increase Shenzhen Port’s throughput by 6 million TEUs upon operation.
According to the 14th Five-Year Plan released by the city’s transportation bureau, Shenzhen Port’s container throughput will reach 33 million TEUs by 2025.