During the 2005 China International Logistics Week held in Shanghai from May 18 to 21, Feng Zhenglin, vice minister of Communications said that China has eight 100-million-tonnage ports, accounting for half of the world's ten largest ports. China now has become one of the most dynamic and potential global shipping markets. In 2004, the shipping capacity of containers in China's ports stood at 616 million standardizing boxes, ranking the world's top. Among the total shipment, highway transports yielded 84 percent.

"It is estimated that the national highway and waterway freight volume will hit 14.9 billion tons by 2005, with the ports' volume of freight traffic expected to reach 4.6 billion tons and ports' volume of container traffic 750 million standardizing boxes, maintaining a good momentum of rapid growth," added Feng.

By the end of 2004, the national overall mileage of highway reached 1.87 million km, including 34,300 km expressway, which made China the second in terms of expressway mileage in the world. The costal ports have 35,108 berths for production purposes, including 944 10,000-tonnage sea berths and 123,300 km of navigable inland channel. Large shipping enterprises, such as China Ocean Shipping (Group) Company (COSCO), China Shipping Group as well as Sinotrans Limited, have become influential in the international material flow market. Additionally, a group of large-scale traditional shipping enterprises, such as Shanghai Jiao Yun (Group) Company has also become the major force in terms of regional material flow.

By People's Daily Online