Yangtze River Delta – the world’s busiest port cluster
China's ports are laid out in five clusters: the Yangtze River Delta, the Pearl River Delta, the Bohai Bay, the Southeast Coastal Port, and the Southwest Coastal Port. Among them, the Yangtze River Delta is the largest and busiest port cluster in China. Centered by the coastal ports of Shanghai, Ningbo-Zhoushan, and Lianyungang, it connects the Wenzhou seaport and several river ports located downstream of the Yangtze River, such as Nanjing, Zhenjiang, Nantong, and Suzhou. As the world’s largest container port, Shanghai Port had a container throughput of 47 million TEUs in 2021. Its operator—Shanghai International Port (Group) Co., Ltd., generated about 36.2 billion yuan (around 5.2 billion U.S. dollars) in revenue that year, with container handling and ancillary services accounting for about 41 percent.Ningbo-Zhoushan Port is the largest seaport in China in terms of annual cargo throughput, with a capacity of more than 1.2 billion metric tons in 2021. About 46 percent of them were foreign trade cargoes, such as seaborne crude oil, liquefied natural gas (LNG), liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), and iron ore. Its main operator, Ningbo-Zhoushan Port Co., Ltd. earned an operating revenue of about 23.1 billion yuan (approx. 3.4 billion U.S. dollars) during that year. Business in liquid bulk and break bulk terminals has declined in recent months, whereas growth continues to be shown in container freight and dry bulk terminals, as indicated by the increasing Ningbo Port Climate Index.
