As Shanghai steps up resumption of businesses after containing the recent COVID-19 resurgence, the coastal city, a major transportation hub, has seen its container throughput recover to more than 80 percent of normal capacity.
According to Shanghai International Port Group, the city’s daily container throughput reached 110,000 TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent units) on Tuesday, while its normal handling volume was around 130,000 TEUs a day.
To tackle logistics bottlenecks caused by COVID-19, especially road congestion, the city has diversified transportation methods in cooperation with shipping companies and the railway department to stabilize supply and industrial chains in the Yangtze River Delta region.
In April, water transfer accounted for 65 percent of the city’s total throughput, while the proportion of rail-sea intermodal transit also reached a record high, according to SIPG, the city’s port operator.
Shanghai completed a container throughput of 3.08 million TEUs in April, recovering to 82.4 percent of that of the same month of last year, Li Guoping, an official with the Ministry of Transport, said earlier this month.
During the first four months, the city’s ports handled 15.35 million TEUs, up 1.8 percent year on year, added Li.
For nearly two months, more than 20,000 port employees have been working under closed-loop management to maintain daily operation, revealed Zhou Yong, a staff member of the production and business department at SIPG.
The overall operation at all container terminals of the city has remained stable, with the support of an intelligent remote control system that enables the handling of a container to be completed in two minutes on average.
The group had in advance expanded the container yard to 600,000 square meters, and more sockets for cold-chain containers were installed.
“With enterprises speeding up the resumption of work and production while keeping with epidemic prevention and control, the port throughput will continue to recover,” Zhou pointed out.
With its container throughput exceeding 47 million TEUs in 2021, Shanghai has ranked as the world’s busiest port for 12 consecutive years.