Tianjin port paving way for OBOR initiative

TIANJIN: The Northeastern port of China located in Tianjin is paving a sustainable way for the development of One Belt One Road (OBOR) initiative and strengthening its connection to the Middle East, West Africa, West America, East America and Europe.

Journalists from South Asia and Southeast Asian countries visited the port and had the opportunity to get the information about the important business hub of the city.

The representative of Tianjin port briefed the journalists about its role in collaborative development of Beijing-Hebei-Tianjin region, construction of pilot free trade zone, accelerate the development and opening up of Binhai new area and national demonstration area.

Tianjin port is the largest comprehensive port in northern China possessing the specialized terminals respectively for containers, iron ore, coal, coke, crude oil and petrochemical products, steel, machinery, ro-ro vehicles, LNG bulk grain and international cruise. Tianjin Port is one of the most complete functions port in China.

It was told to the journalists that there are totally 176 various berths in this port, including 122 berths over 10,000 tons. Tianjin Port is the highest grade artificial port in the world. Through the channel, 22 meter water depth, 300,000 tonnage vessel can enter the port freely and first advanced and largest 20,000 teu ship started sail here from December 2014.

He said that last year, the cargo throughput of Tianjin Port broke through 550 million tons, ranked number 5 in the world. The port contains eight port areas namely North port, East port, South port, Dagukou, Gaoshaling, Dagang, Beitang and Haihe River Port.

The port has broad international connection as it has trade relation with more than 500 ports in over 180 countries and regions.

The representative also told that with its 120 container services, every month there are about 550 scheduled vessels connecting with main ports in the world. Presently, approximately 70% of the cargo throughout and more than 50% of the import and export cargo value via the port come from the provinces outside Tianjin.

With the traditional advantages of shipping, infrastructure and quay line, the public port infrastructure of north port and south port will be further strengthened and the business of shipping trade, port agency, commodity trading, modern logistics, industrial distribution, fuel supply and vessel service and to build the demonstrative area of port transformation will be upgraded.

The southern area of Harbor Economic Area will undertake the operation of domestic container, roro vehicle and breakbulk cargo, focusing on terminal operation and comprehensive logistics, high end equipment manufacturing, new health and new energy material industry.

In 2016, Tianjin Port Group opened many routes including 10 container routes to European destinations such as Minsk and Moscow, thus enlarging the number of routes to Tangshan, Huanghua, Qinghuangdao and Caofeidian and laying a foundation for the Belt and Road Initiative.

Tianjin port will support it in opening new routes and publicizing the increased container capacity for promoting trade and economic development.

As per the data available, in 2015, the port-and-rail transport in Tianjin Port handled 310,000 TEUs while it handled 151,000 TEUs in the first six months of 2016, up 22.5 percent from the first half of last year.

It was told that in order to promote the further opening up of Tianjin East free trade port area was approved by state council on 31 August, 2006. The total area of Tianjin east free trade port area is 10 KM square, the first phase of 4 KM square was completed in 2007, and the whole area was completed in August 2012.

The official said that by 2020, the container throughput of Tianjin Port will reach 17 million TEU and the port will become high level first class large port in the world of international hub, green and safe are contributing to the development of Tianjin and the region.