(File Photo)

Development of Tianjin Port in the past decade has been enormous. Its capacity has gone from 258 million tons of cargo and 5.95 million TEUs (Twenty-Foot Equivalent Unit) of containers in 2006 to 540 million and 14 million respectively in 2015. Tianjin Port is now the world's fourth largest port as calculated by tonnage, and the largest one in northern China.

Tiajin Port trades with more than 600 ports in 180 countries and regions around the world. It is served by over 115 regular container lines run by 60 companies. Now it has set up 25 land ports in 11 inland provinces, and sea-rail combined transportation will become its "artery" leading further into the Eurasian continent. 

Via sea-rail combined transportation, the transport time for goods from Japan to Kazakhstan has been reduced from 70 days down to 15, said an official with the port. 

In 2015, Tianjin Port received a total of 96 visits from international cruise ships and 427,000 inbound and outbound passenger flows—record highs for both figures. 

It is expected that by 2020, the port's cargo throughput and container throughput will reach 650 million tons and 17 million TEUs respectively, which will provide strong support for it to become the nexus of international shipping in the north.

(File Photo)