Containers pile up at the Tonghai Port in Haimen, a county-level city in Nantong, East China’s Jiangsu province. [Photo/ntfabu.com]

Tonghai Port in Nantong, East China’s Jiangsu province, has been setting records in monthly container throughput since the beginning of this year.

The monthly container throughput exceeded 100,000 twenty-foot container equivalent units (TEUs) in June for the first time, and set a record high in July with 119,000 TEUs.

Tonghai Port is the largest port logistics project in Haimen, a county-level city in Nantong. Construction on the port has been divided into two stages, the first of which began in June 2016 and started operating on June 30, 2018.

The port has received 2.2 billion yuan ($310.42 million) in investment so far and has proved over the past few years to have a strong production capacity, said Tao Yu, a senior executive of the operating company.

Three 70,000-ton berths with a handling capacity of 1.47 million TEUs and 633,000 tons of other goods have been built at the port.

Another five berths for 40,000 to 70,000-ton ships will be built during the port’s second stage of construction.

The port currently operates 11 direct routes, including eight domestic routes to cities such as Yingkou, Tianjin, Quanzhou, Dalian, and Xiamen, and three international routes to Japan and South Korea. Additional routes to southern Chinese cities and Southeast Asia are planned.

According to authorities, the port aims to handle one million TEUs this year, and more than two million by 2022.