Hong Kong box volume up 22%

Updated 11:50 a.m. ET, Fri Jun 18, 2004

The JOURNAL of COMMERCE ONLINE
 

Container shipping traffic through all the port and river terminals of Hong Kong, the world's busiest container port, rose to 2.02 million TEUs in May, up 22 percent from a year earlier, according to data from the Port Development Council.

The total is slightly up from 1.85 million TEUs recorded in April.

The Kwai Chung container terminals had throughput of 1.13 million TEUs in May, up 14.5 percent year-on-year. The terminals handled 1.04 million TEUs in April.

Other cargo-handling areas, such as private wharves, had throughput of 889,000 TEUs in May, an increase of 32 percent.

Operators at Kwai Chung, which handles the majority of Hong Kong's shipping traffic, include Wharf (Holdings) Ltd's 55 percent-owned Modern Terminals Ltd., Hutchison Whampoa's Hong Kong International Terminals Ltd., COSCO-HIT Terminals Ltd., and CSX World Terminals Hong Kong Ltd., a unit of CSX Corp.

From January to May, Hong Kong's total throughput was 9.07 million TEU, up 11.7 per cent year-on-year. Kwai Chung accounted for 5.06 million TEU of the total amount, up 4 percent; while river trade and mid-stream operations accounted for 4.01 million TEU of the territory's maritime freight, up 23.1 percent.

-- Peter Leach

China province eyes closer Taiwan ties

Updated 10:39 a.m. ET, Thu Jun 10, 2004

By P.T. Bangsberg
The JOURNAL of COMMERCE ONLINE

China's southeastern Fujian province plans to create an economic zone intended to speed up economic ties with Taiwan.

The zone will initially cover coastal areas of Fujian, the mainland point nearest to Taiwan, and gradually expand to inshore areas in neighboring Zhejiang and Guangdong provinces, Huang Xiaojing, executive vice governor of Fujian, said in announcing the West Coast Economic Zone.

Fujian was one of China's first provinces to allow overseas investment and has one of the first special economic zones at the Port of Xiamen.

It and the nearby Port of Fuzhou, the provincial capital, are also the only designated points for sea trade with Taiwan.

Substantial expansion of Xiamen is expected after government approval to develop the Songyu district into a deep-water gateway.

Phase one will see construction of three 100,000-ton container berths, each more than 4,000 feet long, to be completed in 2005. Completion of the entire project will enable the port to accommodate ships up to 6,000-TEU capacity, the Ministry of Communication said.

Plans also call for Songyu to eventually be located within a customs bonded area and have warehousing facilities.

Xiamen handled 2.33 million TEUs in 2003. Throughput is expected to increase to 5.5 million TEUs by 2005.

The Xiamen special economic zone has initial approval to become a free port with a dedicated logistics area and export processing. It already has a bonded zone.

The government in Taiwan maintains a ban on direct sea or air transport with the mainland, except for goods routed through a designated "offshore" zone within the main Port of Kaohsiung. Officials are gradually easing restrictions by adding other areas with similar special districts.

Fujian, China's 11th largest provincial economy with gross domestic product of 523 billion yuan ($63.27 billion) in 2003, will build on its electronic information, machinery, petrochemical, construction and apparel industries, Huang said. Improved infrastructure and better access for overseas investors are also promised

New Shanghai port to bid terminals

Updated 12:44 p.m. ET, Mon Jun 14, 2004

The JOURNAL of COMMERCE ONLINE
 

Construction of the first phase of Shanghai's new deepwater port at Yanshan is going faster than expected and will be complete by late next year, according to a report in Monday's Financial Times.

Progress is so good that the port is already preparing to open tenders for foreign terminal operators to bid on building new terminals at the port. The first terminal is expected to open in 2006.

The port plans to consider bids for the operation of the second terminal, which should be ready to open in early 2007, according to Zhang Huimin, vice director of the Yangshan port project. "This is what we will do in the second half of this year," he told the newspaper.

The world's biggest shipping companies and terminal operators are expected to compete strongly to run terminals in Shanghai. Port operators and shippers see this as a place to be, because it is the largest commercial opportunity on the horizon, said Zhang.

The city is rushing to complete the first stage of the port by late next year to keep up with the explosion of container traffic, which doubled in the three years to 2003 to 11.3 million TEUs per year.

Shanghai, which now ranks third in the world in container traffic behind Hong Kong and Singapore, is expected to overtake them in the next three to five years at present rates of growth.

The port, which is being built on reclaimed land along a string of craggy islands connected to the mainland by a 19-mile bridge across open seas, is one of the largest and most complicated infrastructure projects in China. Shanghai was forced to build a deepwater port because the waters surrounding its present terminals are too shallow for modern container ships.

By the time it is completely finished in 2020, he port will have the capacity for 50 large container berths and will have cost at least $106 billion.