This Day, That Year

Editor’s note: This year marks the 70th anniversary of the founding of New China.

On Oct 17, 1952, Tanggu New Port officially opened its doors.

Now known as the Port of Tianjin, it is the largest port in North China and the main maritime gateway to Beijing.

In September 1973, Tianjin port helped lay out the country’s first international container shipping route and established its first container berth within the next decade.

An item from Feb 4, 1982, showed cargo being unloaded at the major port.

After just a few decades of development, China’s shipbuilding and container transportation sectors have reached international standards.

In 2002, China overtook the US to become the world’s top handler of containers.

In one of the latest port rankings released by Lloyd’s List, a United Kingdom journal on the shipping sector, the Port of Tianjin is the ninth busiest in the world. Last year, its annual handling capacity reached nearly 16 million TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent units of cargo capacity), up 6.2 percent year-on-year.

Ports in China were a major force behind the 4.8 percent global growth in the sector last year, the ranking showed.

Of the top 100 ports, 21 are in China. The country boasts seven of the top 10 ports in the world, based on cargo and container throughput.

Shanghai Port is the world’s busiest, with an annual handling capacity of more than 42 million TEUs last year, up 4.4 percent from the previous year. The port started container transportation operations in 1978.

Ningbo-Zhoushan Port ranked the third busiest last year. The port saw its cargo throughput jump 5.5 percent year-on-year to 557.96 million metric tons in the first half of this year.

The latest container handling and shipping equipment also continues to complement China’s growing logistics network and connectivity, including links with its central and western regions to the global market under a ports distribution strategy that combines coastal waters and inland rivers.