More than 2,000 years ago, in the Qin Dynasty, the City of Guangzhou was established, and the world famous Maritime Silk Road started from here, while the earliest foreign trade began at the Guangzhou Port. For such a long time, Guangzhou and the Guangzhou Port has been accompanying each other and experiencing a prosperous development together.

 

Now, according to the blueprint to build “a hub-type network city”, Guangzhou will extend its open transportation network to the world. At the Guangzhou Port, there are about 50,000 containers collected and distributed every day. At the Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport, there are more than 1,000 flights in service every day. At the railway stations of Guangzhou, there are more than 400 trains running toward all directions every day. In the urban area of Guangzhou, drills dig at a speed of hundreds of meters every day for building subways…The integration of sea, land and air transportation networks extending outward and the underground rail transit network serving all directions in the city enables the comprehensive transportation network of Guangzhou to feature a layout of a metropolis as well as the convenience for living.

 

This February, the State Council approved the master urban planning of Guangzhou, which positions Guangzhou as “the capital city of Guangdong province, a famous national historic and cultural city, an important central city of China, an international business and trade center and a comprehensive transportation hub”.

 

This August, at the 9^th Plenary Session of the 10^th CPC Guangzhou Committee, it was put forward that Guangzhou should center on the general objective to build an important central city of China to make great efforts to build a hub-type network city, an international comprehensive transportation hub featuring good connectivity as well as a world-class network of airports, seaports and railways to improve the greater channels for comprehensive transportation extending outward and continuously improve the citywide rail transit and rapid transit networks. It aims to form up convenient and fast connections between different clusters and set up a greater transportation layout by expanding and improving the air routes, shipping routes, railway lines and urban highways and expressways and building a route framework with air-railway and sea-railway combined transportation modes.

 

With emphasis laid on the construction of a hub-type network city, the positioning of Guangzhou as three international strategic hubs has been highlighted. Currently, Guangzhou is building the international shipping hub based on the Nansha New Area and Guangzhou Port, the international air transport hub based on the Baiyun International Airport and the Aerotropolis, and the international science and technology innovation hub based on the urban science and technology innovation corridor. It is sparing no efforts to build these three hubs. This not only means improvement of the major infrastructure of the city. What’s more important, it means that the city should become a strong absorber and radiation source for high-end elements, including industries, talents, capitals and technologies, which will help Guangzhou further improve its competitiveness under the development pattern of China and even that of the world.

 

By the end of October, the Guangzhou Port had established 24 inland ports or offices.

 

On September 27, 2016, the project to expand the deep-water channel of the Guangzhou Port was launched. It strives to put the Phase I project into use in the second half of the next year. This is the “No.1 project” for Guangzhou to build the international shipping hub, meaning that, in the future, there will be an expanded “water expressway” for international large ships to get in and out of the Guangzhou Port. This can basically solve the congestion problem so that ships do not have to wait for so long a time as they used to do. In this way, the efficiency of the worldwide sea transportation network of the Guangzhou Port can be improved.

 

In the future, in accordance with the 13^th Five-Year Development Plan and the planning blueprint named Opinions of the People’s Government of Guangzhou on Further Supporting the Development of Guangzhou Port Group, Guangzhou Port Group will promote the construction of a number of projects, including the international general wharf at Nansha Port area, the Phase II project of the Xinsha project, the general wharf at Bohe Port area in Maoming, the Phase IV project of the Nansha project, the Nansha International Cruise Home-Port and the project for expansion of the wharf at Shazai Island, aiming to continuously enhancing the improvement of the port capacity. By 2020, there will have been 30 new international container liner routes and more than 30 feeder ports and inland ports; two or three world’s top 10 container liner companies will use the Guangzhou Port as their base port for container transportation in South China.

 

The seaward channel of the Guangzhou Port is known as one of the busiest golden waterways in the world. In 2015, the Guangzhou Port finished cargo throughput of 520 million tons and container throughput of 17.625 million TEUs, ranking fourth among all Chinese coastal ports and respectively sixth and seventh worldwide. From January to October 2016, the Guangzhou Port finished cargo throughput of 445 million tons and container throughput of 15.2 million TEUs. Of them, Guangzhou Port Group finished cargo throughput of 338 million tons, up 5.3% year-on-year, and container throughput of 13.119 TEUs, up 7.3% year-on-year. From the beginning of this to the end of October, 11 new container liner routes for foreign trade were put into operation.

 

Source: Translated from Invest Guangzhou