Shanghai Port, located in the middle of the 18000km-long continental coastline of China, lying against the 6300km-long Yangtze River at the back and standing at the junction of east-west transportation channel of Yangtze River and south-north transportation channel at sea, is an estuary type coastal port. Shanghai Port links up with marginal waters of South China Sea, North Sea and oceans of the world in the front, and Yangtze River basin, inland rivers of Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Anhui Province, and Taihu Lake Basin in the back. Shanghai port is also connected with Hu-Hang Railway, Hu-Ning Railway, national trunk railways, National Highway 204, 320, 312 and 318 that lead to Yantai, Urumchi, Kunming and Lhasa respectively, and Hu-Ning and Hu-Hang Highway. Shanghai Port area has superior natural conditions, developed hinterland economy and smooth handling channels.
Shanghai Port has a total area of 3619.6km2, the largest port of China, where: The water areas of Yangtze River Estuary and Huangpu River Port at Wusong Estuary are 3580km2 and 33km2 respectively. Land area inside port area was 6.6km2 at the end of 1999. Bank line of Huangpu Port area is 120km long, thereof, 100.2km-long bank line is under use, where 20.1km is used by the port bureau. Shanghai Port is the largest inland port of China, which plays a significant role in economic development of Shanghai and China. 60% of total volume of import and export material assets in Shanghai and 99% of foreign trade import and export material assets at Shanghai Port are handled through Shanghai Port. In addition, Shanghai Port also undertakes over 30% of total throughput of domestic transfer cargos. Cargo throughput in Shanghai Port exceeded 100 million tons for the first time in 1984, and reached 186 million tons in 1999, ranking one of the large-scale ports in the world. As a significant symbol of international large-scale ports, container business started in Shanghai in 1978, which increased at a speed of 30% annually and achieved 4.216 million standard containers in 1999. Shanghai Port is also the important passenger distributing center of China, which delivered 5.81 million man times in 1999. Up to now, Shanghai Port has established shipping and trade relationships with over 500 ports and over 600 shipping companies from 200 countries and regions in the world. 14 international container regular sea routes starting from Shanghai Port send more than 500 liners to North America, South America, Europe, Oceania, Persian Gulf, Mediterranean Sea, Africa, Southeast Asia, Northeast Asia and Hong Kong every month. Shanghai Port plays a significant role among the Yangtze Delta ports, which throughput used to account for more than half of that of Yangtze Delta ports at the beginning of 1990s. These ports have been developing fast these years, however, the throughput of Shanghai Port still accounted for 43% in 1999. More importantly, Shanghai Port has become the container distributing place in this area, which container throughput accounts for 78% among the ports in this area. A large amount of containers in adjacent areas are delivered from Shanghai Port to the world. The world economic growth center is moving towards the Asia-Pacific Region, while Chinese economy is also developing rapidly. Shanghai Port now is in a good development period. It is estimated that, the cargo throughput in Shanghai Port will reach 280 million tons in 2010 and 320 million tons in 2020 and container throughput will achieve 7 million and 12 million standard containers respectively. In order to build Shanghai an international shipping center, Shanghai Port has established a future strategic development planning, namely, to adapt the large-scale trend of container ship, consider the development and construction of deep-water port that can contain the forth and fifth generation of international container ship as the highlight, play the traditional advantages, explore diversified industries, participate in market competition, and focus on the regulation of Yangtze River Estuary channel. Hence, Shanghai Port will definitely stand erect at the west coast of Pacific Ocean with a greater attitude.
