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.