Throughput 2013: 23,278,000 teu – up 1.47 per cent on 2012 (22,941,000 teu)

After years of threatening to do so, China’s Pearl River Delta port of Shenzhen finally overtook Hong Kong as the world’s third largest container port, despite seeing the most sluggish growth rate of the world’s 10 largest container ports (Hong Kong’s decline notwithstanding).

Like Hong Kong (see below), its lower than average throughput growth may have been due in part to labour action at the port’s Yantian and Shekou terminals – run by Hutchison Port Holdings and China Merchants Group respectively – when employees went on strike for higher pay.

However, operations at China Merchants’ newest facility of Da Chan Bay in western Shenzhen remained unaffected and for the first time since it first served a vessel in November 2008, the terminal hit the 1 million teu mark in a single year.

In November last year the terminal began using the Navis N4 terminal operating system, launching its process re-engineering initiative, New Horizon, at the same time.

Topics

The world's top 10 container ports

Shanghai container port

The Chinese behemoth gateway of Shanghai maintained its position as the world’s busiest container port. Container and Shipping Trade looks at the biggest 10 container ports and compares 2013 throughput with 2012.