Masses of containers cover Yangshan Port, a unit of the giant Shanghai Port. [Photo by Zhao Lirong]

The container throughput of the massive Shanghai Port on the coast of East China is expected in 2021 to have reached 47 million TEUs or twenty-foot equivalent units – the standard container size – a performance which means it has ranked first in the world for the 12th consecutive year.

The current shortage of empty containers is widely said to be one of the biggest challenges facing the global shipping industry today. To solve the problem, Shanghai Port has rolled out a series of innovative measures, such as its 24/7 online container business and the offsite return or retrieval of containers.

The new Shanghai Port Northeast Asia Empty Container Transportation Center was established on Aug 10 in the Yangshan Special Comprehensive Bonded Area, to solve the seasonal shortage of containers caused by the imbalance of import and export container units.

In addition, relying on digitization, the service efficiency of Shanghai Port is understood to have been extensively improved.

Yangshan Port's intelligent heavy trucks transported an estimated 40,000 TEUs this year.

"Through the intelligent screen and big data at the scheduling center, we can clearly grasp the operations situation of each dock and the future plan," said Yang Yanbin, a manager at Shanghai International Port Group, or SIPG – operator of the public terminals at the Port of Shanghai.

In December 2017 – when it was opened – until the end of 2020, the throughput of the massive Yangshan Phase IV automated terminal, which is the largest and most automated of its kind in the world, amounted to 110 billion TEUs. The scale of equipment put into operation at the port during that period increased from 100 to 239 units.

According to an SIPG official, 41 additional units of equipment have recently been made ready to use and the production scale of 26 operation routes will be formed in the current year, which will allow Yangshan Port to achieve an annual design capacity of 6.3 million TEUs.

During the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-25), the scale of international transshipments and consolidation business of Yangshan Port is projected to continue to expand.