Shanghai to spend $1.2b for port

Shanghai to spend $1.2b for port

BEIJING (AFP): The city of Shanghai plans to spend at least 10
billion yuan (US$1.2 billion) on dredging the mouth of the
Yangtze river to allow larger vessels to sail into its port,
Xinhua said Saturday.

The report from the official news agency quoted a city
official as saying that within seven to 10 years, the most up-to-
date container ships and vessels of 100,000-tonnage could be able
to anchor in Shanghai's port.

The plan is part of a project to turn Shanghai into an
international shipping center capable of handling 220 million
tons of cargo by the end of the century and 280 million tons by
2010.

According to the official, the port was expected to raise its
container handling capacity from 1.9 million Twenty-foot
Equivalent Units (TEUs) presently, to at least 2.5 million TEUs
by 2000 and more than six million TEUs by 2010.

The report quoted experts as saying that, except for heavy
silting which has plagued the port for half a century, Shanghai
had the advantages of the world's major ports, including Hong
Kong, Singapore, New York and Rotterdam.

Shanghai is a flourishing financial and trade center which
handles US$52 billion worth of goods annually.

It also benefits from a 14 to 20 percent annual economic
growth rate in the Yangtse river basin which boosts the growth
rate of container freight at the port by 30 percent annually.

Official sources say that the seven provinces surrounding
Shanghai, as well as the municipality, produce 40 percent of
China's Gross National Product and account for 21 percent of its
import and export volume.