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The volume of cargo passing through China's ports every year is to rise by 50% in the next five years.
The volume of cargo passing through China's ports every year is expected to rise by more than 50 percent in the next five years, a report said Tuesday.

Communications Minister Zhang Chunxian, speaking at a conference in Shanghai, said the total cargo volume would rise to 6.1 billion tons a year by 2010 from 4 billion tons last year, the state-run newspaper Shanghai Daily reported.

Zhang said the number of shipping containers passing through the country's ports will rise to 140 million TEUs, or 20-foot equivalent units, by 2010, up from 61.5 million last year, it said.

The amount of cargo handled by China's ports jumped 21.3 percent last year, the report said.

Shanghai, mainland China's biggest port, overtook Rotterdam in the Netherlands last year as the top overall cargo handling port, processing 380 million tons of goods, according to Chinese statistics.

China's economy is growing at a rate of more than 9 percent a year, straining international shipping capacity. Already the biggest cargo handling nation, China aims to become the leading global shipbuilder by 2015.

Last year, Shanghai was third overall in handling shipping containers, with 11 million TEUs, behind Hong Kong, with more than 20 million TEUs, and Singapore, with about 19 million TEUs.

The growth has also set off a frenzy of new port construction in China, with the country's largest new project, Yangshan, taking shape on an island about 27 kilometers (17 miles) from Shanghai. The terminal, being built with an investment of 100 billion yuan (US$12 billion; euro9.6 billion) will eventually be connected to the city by a massive tunnel and bridge link and have an annual capacity of 20 million TEUs.