Weihai Port has seen growth in overall throughput and container throughput due to the integrated reform and development of ports in Shandong province, said Gao Bing, director of Weihai Port, a branch of Shandong Port Group.

Weihai Port, a branch of Shandong Port Group [Photo/dzwww.com]

In the first five months of the year, the overall throughput at Weihai Port reached 10.76 million tons, a year-on-year growth of 9.1 percent, while its container throughput hit 393,000 Twenty-foot Equivalent Units (TEUs), a year-on-year growth of 26.79 percent, according to Gao.

"Weihai Port was a small port with few resources and small business volume. After integrating into Shandong Port Group, it has developed a large number of new businesses by virtue of the resource advantages of the large group," said Gao.

Launched in August 2019, Shandong Port Group has integrated the major ports in the province, including Qingdao Port, Yantai Port, Rizhao Port and the Bohai Bay Port Group, to consolidate resources and expand its operations to more markets.

Gao said that Weihai Port has since last year opened nine container shipping routes to Binzhou, Weifang, Yantai, Rizhao, Lianyungang, Taicang and other ports, building a container shipping network that covers Liaodong Bay and Bohai Bay.

With the support of Shandong Port Group, Weihai Port has cooperated with counterparts such as Qingdao Port to open more sea-railway combined trains and developed more routes to the country's inland areas.

The development direction of Weihai Port is now also clearer, said Gao, who added that the port will leverage its geographical advantage of neighboring Japan and South Korea and build a logistics hub that is connected to these two nations.

The port will make full use of the advantages of Weihai and Incheon in terms of location, traffic, policy and other aspects, carry out multimodal transport, and build a two-way logistics channel for goods from China, South Korea and other countries to Japan, Europe and the United States, said Gao.