Nantong Port. [Photo/nttv]

The container throughput of Nantong Port in Jiangsu province jumped 57.5 percent year-on-year in the first quarter of this year to 648,000 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs), according to the Nantong municipal bureau of maritime affairs.

The port has opened regular routes to numerous ports along the middle and upper reaches of the Yangtze River, including Nanjing, Wuhan, and Chongqing, and direct container routes to Tianjin, Guangzhou, Haikou, and other Chinese cities as well as countries including Japan and South Korea.

Nantong Port currently houses 15 berths, including two 100,000-metric ton berths, three 70,000-ton berths, and one 50,000-ton berth.

Tonghai wharf, the main port area for handling containers at Nantong Port, also showed a stellar performance in the Jan-March period with its container throughput up 52.1 percent from last year.

In the first three months of this year, the Tonghai port area handled 394,200 TEUs, while its throughput of foreign trade containers increased 26.8 percent year-on-year.

Since March, the three berths and 10 quay cranes in the port area have been operating at full capacity. On March 18, the night and day handling of containers in Tonghai port area reached a record high of 6,358, exceeding last year's record of 6,315.

Nantong Port is a strategic point for the development of the Yangtze River Economic Belt as well as a crucial support for the construction of a Yangtze River Delta shipping hub sailing around the world.

Local maritime affairs authorities have taken measures to improve the shipping environment, support local wharves in expanding businesses, and promote the construction of Jiangsu's first intelligent container wharf in Tongzhou Bay.