Shanghai port traffic up 24% in first half of year
Shanghai, China's busiest container port, handled 24 per cent more sea-cargo boxes in the first half of the year, helped by the country's booming exports of toys, clothes and other goods.Shares of the port's operator surged yesterday. Shanghai moved 12.5 million 20-foot boxes in the six months ended June 30, the local port authority said on its website.Total cargo volume rose 21 per cent to 174 million tonnes in the period. Shanghai has almost doubled its container traffic over the past three years under a government drive to build the city into the nation's shipping hub.The port may handle 15 per cent more containers this year and it expects to surpass Singapore as the world's busiest container port in 2008. Traffic at the port rose to a record 2.22 million boxes in June, according to the statement, which didn't give a year earlier figure. The full-year tally will probably be about 25 million boxes, Wang Qingwei, board secretary of Shanghai International Port (Group) Co, the port's operator, said in June. Shares of the company rose by the 10 per cent daily limit to 7.99 yuan at 10:38 am in Shanghai.The counter closed at the same level, up 73 fen for the day.The stock has risen 14 per cent this year, lagging behind an 87 per cent rise in the benchmark CSI300 Index.
Shanghai surpassed Hong Kong as the world's second-busiest container port in the first quarter.