Port of Xiamen

The port of Xiamen is an important deep-water port situated in the estuary of the Jiulongjiang River on the south coast of Fujian province in the . It is one of the trunk line ports in the Asia-Pacific region. It is ranked the 8th largest container port in the PRC, and ranks 30th among the world's top 100. It is the 4th port in the PRC with the capacity to handle the sixth-generation large container vessels. In 2003, Xiamen handled 34.04 million tons of cargo, including 2.33 million s of containers.

The port comprises six areas: Heping, Dongdu, Haitian, Shihushan, Gaoqi and Liuwudian in Tongan.

The world's top 20 shipping companies have all established major shipping routes and operations in Xiamen. A total of 68 shipping routes serve over 50 countries to almost all the major ports in the world, yielding an average 469 ship calls at the port each month. In addition, passenger services also operate from Xiamen to Hong Kong, Guangzhou, Shanghai and Wenzhou.

The port is owned and operated by Xiamen Port Authority which is a department of the Xiamen Municipal Government.

Infrastructure

Xiamen is a well-developed first-class port. Dongdu harbor is located on Haicang district which is on the mainland. The coast line in the harbor area stretches for 30 km and the depth of water reaches up to 17 metres.

The port offers 74 berths. One can handle vessels of 100,000 or more tonnes, 23 berths are for 10,000 or more tonnes, and two handle vessels between berths for 5,0000 and 10,000 tonnes. There are nine container terminals.

Developments

Xiamen is the first port to start the direct shipment of cargo to Kaohsiung in . The initial cargo handling capacity totalled 1.34 million TEUs of containers.