The flagship effect of agglomeration in the integration of Shandong coastal ports

The high-level inspection team of Qingdao Port has completed on-site inspections of six major ports in Shandong Province, marking the beginning of a new round of port cooperation and development for the port.

In January 2008, the container terminal jointly established by Qingdao Port and Weihai Port completed a total of 438000 TEUs after two years of operation, with an average annual growth rate of 49%, highlighting the integration effect. In May 2007, the container terminal jointly established by Qingdao Port and Rizhao Port achieved a throughput of 430000 TEUs and a 62% increase compared to the same period in just over six months of operation.

Integration is the trend

With the rapid development of the international shipping industry and the rapid expansion of port throughput, the wave of port expansion across the country has once again hit, with the saying 'one fence, three stakes, one hero, three gangs'. The repeated investment and structural overcapacity of ports in some regions have become increasingly apparent. Looking at ports both domestically and internationally, a wave of "integration fever" is also surging.

Domestically, Shanghai Port has established a "strategic alliance" with Chongqing Port, Wuhan Port, and Nantong Port; Jiangsu will merge Zhangjiagang Port, Changshu Port, and Suzhou Port into one; Tianjin is building a team centered around Tianjin Port, with Caofeidian Port and Huanghua Port as its two wings.

Abroad, Japan is actively studying the integration of five major ports in the three major regions of Tokyo Yokohama, Kobe Osaka, and Nagoya; New York Port, also a combination port spanning across New York and New Jersey, was able to serve as one of the world's shipping centers earlier

On November 30, 2007, Guo Zhaoxin, Vice Governor of Shandong Province, stated at the Shandong Coastal Port Work Symposium that the coastal ports in Shandong Province should try to avoid internal competition as much as possible, allocate various production factors reasonably, give full play to the intensive effect of port groups, achieve complementary advantages, staggered development, avoid functional similarity, and form a port system in the province with a reasonable, complementary, and coordinated layout of major ports, important ports, hub ports, trunk ports, branch ports, and feeding ports.

This meeting provides an opportunity for further integration of coastal ports in Shandong. In the strategy of promoting "Maritime Shandong" and "Maritime Strong Province" proposed by the Shandong Provincial Party Committee and Government, a development plan has also been put forward to build a northern international shipping center with Qingdao Port as the leader, Yantai and Rizhao Ports as the two wings, and the Peninsula Port Group as the foundation, which will be regulated and guided at the government level. Qingdao Port fully plays its leading role, actively integrates resources within the province, and through complementary resource advantages, a combination of international shipping centers centered on Qingdao Port and flanked by Weihai Port and Rizhao Port has been formed.

Cross regional cooperation to achieve '1+2>3'

In 2006 and 2007, Qingdao Port successively joined forces with Weihai Port and Rizhao Port to cooperate on container terminals. This not only fully utilizes Qingdao Port's comprehensive advantages in global layout, brand management, marketing, and large scale of container routes, but also leverages the latecomer advantages of Rizhao and Weihai ports in terms of location, collection and distribution, and abundant container coastline resources, forming complementary advantages and jointly building an international shipping center. In the words of Chang Dechuan, Chairman and President of Qingdao Port Group, "Qingdao Port has the advantages of shipping routes and ship scale, while Rizhao Port has the advantages of location and inland railway transportation. If the advantages of the two ports can complement each other, the role of Shandong Port can be better demonstrated

Port hinterland expansion - Before the joint venture between Qingdao Port and Weihai Port, the container cargo hinterland was basically within a radius of 120 kilometers from Weihai Port. After the joint venture, the cargo hinterland was actively expanded, including Yantai Development Zone, Mouping, Laishan, Fushan and other places within a range of 120-150 kilometers. Some cargo types also extended to Longkou, which is 150 kilometers away. Before the cooperation, goods from these regions had to detour by land to Qingdao Port via the Jiaozhou Bay Expressway. Now, they can be transported directly from Rizhao Port to Qingdao Port, greatly reducing freight costs. Freight costs for goods from places like Heze and Jining can be saved by one-third, and the cost reduction greatly enhances the absorption capacity of goods from Rizhao and Qingdao ports.

The density of shipping routes has significantly increased - the container shipping routes of Qingdao Port and Rizhao Port have been increased from one trip per week to one trip per day, and the monthly container volume has shown a geometric growth trend, expanding from a few hundred boxes to over 5000 boxes per month, an increase of nearly 10 times. The effectiveness of the cooperation between the two sides has been fully demonstrated. Before the joint venture between Qingdao Port and Weihai Port, there was only one ship operating twice a week on the Qingdao Weihai foreign trade branch line. After the joint venture, more ships and schedules were added, with two ships and four weekly operations. The shipping capacity increased by 125% compared to before the joint venture, and the volume of feeder containers has also increased from 33000 TEUs per year before the joint venture to 96000 TEUs per year now, doubling year-on-year.

Sharing of Information Resource Achievements - Qingdao Port, which has the largest EDI center among coastal ports in China, is at the forefront of information technology construction. Previously, container transportation at Rizhao Port required manual recording of entry and exit manifests by business personnel, which was very slow. The information management system of Qingdao Port has been activated, and business that used to take three to five hours to process can now be completed with just one click or two seconds of the mouse.

Integration of Qianwan Port Area from "Four Directions" to "Five Directions"

On September 8, 2007, the construction of the fourth phase of the Qingdao Port Qianwan Port Area began on the south bank of the area. The joint venture company Qingdao Qianwan Container Terminal Co., Ltd., which previously belonged to Qingdao Port and Dubai Global, has unified the operation and management of the dock shoreline, giving Qingdao Port a 2640 meter container dock shoreline on the south bank of Qianwan Port.

Just two months later, on November 16th, the joint venture company of Qingdao Port - Qingdao Qianwan Container Terminal Co., Ltd. "Three Kingdoms and Four Directions" shareholders (i.e. Qingdao Port Group, Dubai Global Group, COSCO Group, Maersk Group) and Pan Asia International Shipping Co., Ltd. The leading position of the port.