The north Chinese port of Shandong posted a cargo throughput of 1.71 billion tons in 2023, an increase of 5.6% year-on-year, making it the world’s busiest cargo handling port, according to Seatrade Maritime.
Shandong also claimed the title of the world’s second largest container port having last year formed a ports cluster with Qingdao Port as the leader and Rizhao Port and Yantai Port as the backbone. It also includes other facilities such as Weihai Port, Dongying Port, and Weifang Port.
Combined container volume at Shandong port was 41.32 million teu in 2023, an increase of 10.8% year-on-year, surpassing Singapore. In 2022 Qingdao was the world’s fifth largest container port handling 25.7 million teu.
Port revenue of Shandong was RMB155 billion ($12.69 billion), up 12.9% compared with the same period of the year before. The profit exceeded RMB10 billionn for the first time mainly attributed by the improvements on operation efficiency.
In 2023, Shandong port saw some 32 new shipping services and added 81.87 million tons annual cargo handling capacity through port infrastructure investment and construction.