On the west coast of the Pacific Ocean, in the mid-China's coastline, lies Ningbo Port. It is prospering and arresting world attention. With a long history and a speedy development, the Port has won wide acclaim home and abroad.
Ningbo Port includes 5 port areas, which are: the old port of Ningbo, Beilun, Zhenhai, Daxie and Chuanshan. The whole port area is made up of river ports, estuary harbors and sea ports. It is a modern, comprehensive, multi-functional port with various berths, with annual thruput of hundreds of millions of tons.
The Port of Ningbo is mainly engaged in stevedoring, transferring, warehousing, logistics of containers, iron ore, crude oil and liquid chemicals, coal, etc.
Now there are 191 operating berths including 39 10,000-tonnage berths. It is the Port that owns the most large and ultra large deep-water berths in mainland China. In 2004, the cargo thruput broke through 225 million tons, ranking the second in China and the fifth in the world. The container thruput hit 4 million TEUs, ranking the fourth in Mainland China, and the ranking is expected to jump to the world's 18th place from the 22nd in 2003.
Ningbo Port is a rare deep-water port of China, enjoying unique natural conditions. Sheltered by Zhoushan Islands, the port area is free from strong winds and waves. There is no freeze or silt within the port area. The entry channel is normally over 30 meters deep except for a section of 4.5 kilometers being 18.2 meters deep. Large ships up to 250,000 tonnage can navigate freely and those of 250,000 to 300,000 tonnage may come and leave at tide. Ningbo Port is a port that receives the most ultra large ships of more than 100,000 tonnage in China.
The Natural advantages of the Port have been widely recognized. The late Hong Kong shipping magnate Bao Yugang thought very highly of Beilun port's facilities. During a trip to Beilun, he said, "this port is Ningbo's best feature and I think it's the only best of China's ports".
Ningbo Port sits at the T-shaped joining point of China's coastline and the Yangtze River. Outwardly the port links East Asia and the whole Asia-Pacific region. Inwardly it connects China's coastal ports.
A distribution network encompassing water, expressways, railroads, air and pipelines has been formed. The railroads are linked with the railway network of the country, making it easy to conduct transit trade.
The great bridge across Hangzhou Bay under construction is to be completed in 2007. Once completed, the traffic time from Ningbo to Shanghai by land will be reduced to 2 hours, and drive time to South Jiangsu Privince and the North Zhejiang Province will be greatly shortened too.
The Port of Ningbo boasts the first-class container berths at the Port, with best facilities, environment and quality services. The berths of 2, 838 meters long is 13.5 ~17meters deep at dock apron. They are equipped with 30 bridge cranes with a maximum outreach of 58~63 meters. They are the state-of-the-art container berths of China and can meet the operation needs of container vessel with over 8000 TEUs. Now it has opened 116 container routes, with monthly voyages totaling 500. among them 54 are trunk lines, taking up 46% of the total, ranking the third in Mainland China, only next to Shanghai and Shenzhen.
In 2001, the port took the lead in the country to begin the construction of Efficient Clearance, and the clearance efficiency has been ever improving. For general cargoes the clearance time has been shortened to within 96 hours and for export goods 48 hours. Starting from July, 2003, Ningbo Customs House, together with Hangzhou Customs House, put forward a new pattern of "customs declaration at another place and clearance at Ningbo Port" at Yiwu City of Zhejiang. At the same time through clearance supervising spots and commodity inspection set-ups were also established at the cities of Jinhua, Shaoxing and Yiwu, bringing the advantages of geological location and deep water of Ningbo Port into further play.
The Port regards fine service as the lifeline of the port. Round-the-clock service in berthing and unberthing is provided for shipping companies to guarantee scheduled operation. Commitments have been made to guarantee quality, safety and scheduled run for all the container liners. To improve efficiency, computerized management has been adopted in container operation. With EDI system set up, the average efficiency per hour for a bridge crane is 49.2 TEUS at the maximum and that for a whole ship is 262.8 TEUS.
In years to come the port of Ningbo shall focus on developing container business and speed up the port construction. It shall put in RMB 20 billion yuan to further nurture its advantages in deepwater conditions, service, management, regional logistics and human resources. It shall implement expansion strategy, brand strategy, building the port with science and technology strategy, open strategy, district and port coupling strategy and sustainable development strategy, aiming to accelerate the development of the port.
By 2007 a first-class international deep-water hub port and a main line port for ocean-going container transport will take an initial shape, serving as an outer deep-water port for Shanghai International Shipping Center. Meanwhile it wall will also be the leading logistics port of Ningbo and Zhejiang. By then 5 transshipment bases for container, crude oil, iron ore, liquid chemicals and coal, as well as the port logistics information platform will be completed and put into operation.
Looking into the future, Mr. Li Linghong, director of Ningbo Port Authority, said confidently: "A new development plan of Ningbo Port has been worked out. By 2007 the port's cargo throughput may reach 250 million tons and container throughput 7 million TEUS; by 2010 cargo throughput may reach 300 million tons and container thruput 10 million TEUS."
