A Report on Shanghai (Yangshan) Port Visit
2013
Debarshi Das
IIFT Kolkata
7/7/2013

Contents * What is a Port - page 3 * Types of Port - page 3 * Major Ports in China - page 4 * Port’s major functions - page 5 * About Shanghai Port - page 6 * Yangshan deep water container terminal - page 7 * Key points and challenges - page 9 * References - page 9

What is a Port?
A “Port” is a facility for receiving ships and transferring cargo to and from them. They are usually situated at the edge of an ocean or sea, river, or lake. Ports often have cargo-handling equipment such as cranes and forklifts for use in loading/unloading of ships, which may be provided by private interests or public bodies. Often, canneries or other processing facilities will be located very close by. Harbor pilots, barges and tugboats are often used to safely maneuver large ships in tight quarters as they approach and leave the docks. The presence of deep water in channels or berths, the provision of protection from the wind, waves and storm surges and access to intermodal transportation such as trains or trucks are critical to the functioning of seaports and river ports.

Types of port: (i) Seaport: The terms "port" and "seaport" are used for ports that handle ocean-going vessels;

(ii) River port: used for facilities that handle river traffic;

(iii) Inland port: An inland port may be located on a lake or river and have river or canal access to the sea;

(iv) Fishing port: A type of port or harbor facility particularly suitable for landing and distributing fish;

(v) Dry port: A dry port is an inland port used for storage of cargo and transport exchange. These may be located close to a seaport but with extra rail, road and air links for extended distribution of goods.

(vi) Cargo ports: Support a large array of goods such as minerals, grains and cars. Some ports will specialize in a certain commodity such as natural gas. In order to hold the large draft of cargo vessels, these ports require deep water channels for entry and exit.

(vii) Cruise home ports: These are embarkation/disembarkation points for cruise ships where they will also take on supplies for voyages

Major ports in China

China's coastal ports enable the transportation of coal, containers, imported iron ore, and grain; roll-on-roll-off operations between mainland and islands; and deep-water access to the sea.
In port construction, China has especially strengthened the container transport system, concentrating on the construction of a group of deep-water container wharves at Dalian, Tianjin, Qingdao, Shanghai, Ningbo, Xiamen and Shenzhen, and thus laying the foundations for China's container hubs. A new deep-water port has opened in Yangshan SW of Shanghai.
The coal transportation system has been further strengthened with the construction of a number of coal transport wharves. In addition, wharves handling crude oil and iron ore imports have been reconstructed or expanded.
At the end of 2004, China's coastal ports had over 2,500 berths of medium size or above, of which 650 were 10,000-ton-class berths; their handling capacity was 61.5 million standard containers for the year, ranking first in the world. Freight volumes handled by some large ports exceed 100 million tons a year; and the Shanghai, Shenzhen, Qingdao, Tianjin, Guangzhou, Xiamen, Ningbo and Dalian have been listed among the world's top 50 container ports.
130 of China's 2,000 ports are open to foreign ships. The major ports, including river ports accessible by ocean-going ships, are Beihai, Dalian, Dandong, Fuzhou, Guangzhou, Haikou, Hankou, Huangpu, Jiujiang, Lianyungang, Nanjing, Nantong, Ningbo, Qingdao, Qinhuangdao, Rizhao, Sanya, Shanghai, Shantou, Shenzhen, Tianjin, Weihai, Wenzhou, Xiamen, Yangzhou, Yantai, and Zhanjiang.

PORT’S MAJOR FUNCTIONS
Function
Ports are one of the most important logistical systems in a sense of global circulation and trade. The functions of ports are: * Transport (circulation) function * Commercial function * Industrial function * Distributional function
Transport (circulation) function of ports
The most important port function is surely transport (circulation) function. For successful execution of business activities, ports have to fit next requirements: * Proper facilities * Good transport links with hinterland * Extended sea transport links
Optimal benefit of all required demands is possible only when there is adjusting port capacities, transport possibilities of continental transport and proper amount of sea links.
Commercial function of ports
Commercial function depends on transport (circulation) function of ports. For efficient commercial work, ports must follow: * Concentration of goods on the port area * Proper warehousing capabilities
In port, commercial function includes purchase and sale activities and additional goods service that rise up the value of goods.
Industrial function of ports
In bigger European ports and in other parts of the world have been developing industrial zones that provide stimulative conditions for business increase (customs relief). Because of that, products are more competitive on global markets.
Economical advantages of strategic industrial zones in ports are: * Rising up of trade and employment * Involving the country in international trade * Increasing the competitive abilities of port industry against the continental industry
Basic condition for effective work of industrial function of port is surely transport (circulation) function. At present, all new port projects involve industrial zones and port zones with all possibilities and additional infrastructure for competitive business.

Distributional function of ports
We understand distributional role of ports as function that appears as a part of supply chain. It is noticeable that some bigger shippers are also operators on separate container terminals that have also become consolidation points (logistic-distributional centers).
Practically we know two types of distributional centers inside the ports, which are: * Distributional centers, where shipments are sent to some smaller centers, from where it is easier to distribute the goods to the final customer * Distributional centers, from where goods are shipped directly to the final customer

About Shanaghai Port
Located at the front edge of the Yangtze River Delta, the Port of Shanghai lies in the middle of the18,000-kilometer continental coastline of the mainland of China and holds the estuary of the Yangtze River. Situated at the junction of the West/East transport route by the Yangtze River and the South/North route along the seacoast, it is one of the major hub ports in China’s coastal area and plays an important role in China’s opening up to the outside world and her participation in the global economy.

Backed by the metropolis of Shanghai and the vast Yangtze River basin and economic hinterlands, Shanghai Port handles or transships goods from all the other 31 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the Central Government in China (including Taiwan). Besides the city of Shanghai, these hinterlands include Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui, Jiangxi, Hubei, Hunan and Sichuan provinces and Chongqing municipality. Shanghai Port boasts convenient waterway and land transport conditions and smooth distribution channels which extend to the whole Yangtze River basin and the vast of the nation through the expressways, state-level highways, trunk line railways and coastal routes.

Yangshan deepwater container terminal
Features:
* Yangshan covers an open yard of 6.5 sq miles, which is some 27.5 km from Luchaogang in Shanghai. * Yangshan has more than 90 islands and reef, actually under the jurisdiction of Zhejiang Province. * The first phase of the Yangshan project includes the building of the Donghai Bridge to link the Shanghai coastal area with the island, and a 5-berth terminal with 14.5m draught. * The 2nd phase of the project mainly includes a terminal with four berths, which was finished in Nov. 2006.

* The sea-crossing bridge is 31.5 km long and 31.5 m wide, with 6 highway lanes. * The construction of Donghai Bridge was finished in May 2005, with the total cost of approximate $5.6 billion.

The 1st phase: 5 berths with the annual handling capacity of 2.2 million TEUs built at the end of 2005.
The 2nd phase: 4 berths, designed to handle 2.1 million TEUs per year.
The 3rd phase: 7 berths with the annual handling capacity of 5 million TEUs, built in Dec. 2008.
There will be about 30 deepwater berths with designed annual capacity of 15 million TEU. The construction of the whole project will continue to 2020.

Key points and challenges: * Although Shanghai has big plans, it is facing intense competition from other Chinese regions, say Guangdong and Beijing-Tianjing. * Yangshan port along with Pu Dong International airport transformed Shanghai into a regional logistics hub.

References: 1. Slides on ‘Logistics in China’ by Prof. Bingliang, Fudan University 2. http://www.eai.nus.edu.sg/BB290.pdf 3. http://www.marinetraffic.com/ais/portdetails.aspx?port_id=1253 4. http://www.shanghaiport.gov.cn/English