Xiamen to become China's fourth shipping centre
Haicang Port in Xiamen City, Fujian province, is going to get a major facelift as the administration has been given the go-ahead by Beijing to build an international shipping centre with Haicang as its epicentre. Only three other ports have been given the green light for such a project - Shanghai, Tianjin and Dalian.
Xiamen vice-mayor Kang Tao said the city would launch 18 projects as part of the Southeast International Shipping Centre. At the heart of the 18 projects would be the building of fully-automatic container handling wharfs and a logistic service centre at an investment of US$2.63 billion at Haicang Port. Xiamen will also inject $362.79 million for building a biomedicine industrial park in neighbouring Haicang New City.
The headquarters building, a multifunctional landmark for the shipping centre, will become operational by 2016, and the centre will take shape by 2020, said Xiamen city officials.
The shipping centre will see the "rise of an international hub for the transport of containers and a zone for the distribution of industrial resources,'' said Tao.
"Xiamen's Southeast International Shipping Centre has drawn support from the central government in Beijing, the provincial authorities in Fujian and the city leadership of Xiamen," said a senior official with the Xiamen Communications Department.
To show its support for the shipping centre, the central government has set aside $15.76 million yuan from the state budget this year for the expansion of shipping channels in the area.
According to the Fujian provincial communications department, the state fund will be used to upgrade the main container channel at Xiamen, the third phase of expansion at Haicang, and the deepening of the container channel at Liuwudian port area. When completed, the main container channel will be able to accommodate vessels of 150,000-dwt.
By the end of 2011, Xiamen had more than 50 deep-water berths, including more than 20 that are capable of accommodating 100,000-dwt vessels while the container berths at Haicang Port can handle the world's latest and largest container vessels.
The shipping centre will comprise a container hub for ocean shipping, incuding transhipments, Taiwan-related transport and cruise shipping. It will also provide services such as ship finance, maritime arbitration, shipping agencies, crew supply and ship maintenance, according to Fujian officials.
The officials believe the centre when completed would also boost traffic at Meizhouwan and Fuzhou port in the city.
Despite a general slowdown in China's economy, Xiamen recorded 11.4 percent GDP growth in the January-June period. Taiwan-related industries grew 19.8 percent in industrial value. Many Taiwanese factories are located in Haicang because it is on the eastern coastline in the Taiwan Straits.
In the first half of 2012, Xiamen's ports handled 3.21 million TEUs, a year-on-year rise of 12 percent. This year Fujian province injected $740.71 million in 13 local projects, building berths at Fuzhou, Quanzhou and Xiamen ports.
Although Dongdu is currently the main port in Xiamen, Haicang Port, as the flagship site of the shipping centre, is expected to be the top port of the city in the near future. More than 30 deep-water berths with a container handling capacity of about 10 million TEUs and 220 million tonnes of general cargo will be built or expanded in the next few years at Haicang, creating a new Xiamen port, said a city official.
Haicang Port will be linked to the bonded trade area nearby. The second phase of the bonded zone was put into operation in March, drawing a total investment of $1.09 billion, which included the building of four deep-water berths within the zone for the convenience of cargo handling and storage. The Haicang bonded zone has dozens of top-tier companies as tenants, including Maersk, Cosco and Hutchison Whampoa.
Cosco's Xiamen Ocean Gate Container Terminal, set up in 2008, currently operates four berths that can handle 100,000-dwt vessels, at the port. "We're planning to convert our No 14 berth into a fully automated container berth in the coming two years," said Chen Hong, a spokeswoman from the company. It will also partly convert to automated operations its No 15 berth.
When the first phase of the No 14 berth is completed, it will become the first automated terminal in China, claimed Hong. The terminal will be able to handle up to 880,000 TEUs a year.
Cosco is also expanding its overseas routes. In July, Prince Rupert, a 8,500 TEU Cosco vessel, anchored at Huchison-run Xiamen International Container Terminals (XICT) at Haicang Port, marking the opening of the company's fourth ocean route to the US West Coast port Long Beach.
However, to capitalise on the shipping centre, Xiamen Port knows it has to extend its services both northward to other parts of Fujian Province and southward to Guangdong Province, enter inland areas in Jiangxi and Hunan provinces, and upgrade Taiwan-related services.
Haicang Port has already merged with Zhangzhou Port nearby and has started feeder services linking Quanzhou, another port in southern Fujian, and Shantou and Chaozhou in Guangdong Province.
Chaozhou, a manufacturing hub for clothing, sanitary porcelain utensils, stainless steel products and metal parts, used to send its containers southward to Shenzhen for ocean shipping, but now it plans to divert the containers to Haicang once the shipping centre takes form. In Chaozhou, Xiamen's feeder port, a new port area at Sanbaimen will be built; in Zhangzhou, its satellite port, facilities in Zhaoyin, Beigang and Gulei port areas will be upgraded.
The port is expected to open new ocean shipping routes in the coming years, some of which have been delayed by the slow economic recovery in Europe and the US.
To facilitate the shipping centre, the city has launched the Xiamen Shipping Exchange and the Southeast International Shipping Arbitration Institute. Since the Xiamen Shipping Exchange was opened in early June, two dozens enterprises have joined as members and operate services such as vessel chartering, trading and crew exchanges.
The exchange will offer one-stop electronic documentary services for port operators, carriers, agencies and shippers, said Jiang Kongque, general manager of the Xiamen Information Group. "A public information platform will link Fujian Province with both inland regions and Taiwan."
