HAVING been under rapid development since being established 15 year ago, the Shanghai port cluster, which is the aggregation of ports in neighbouring province of Jiangsu and Zhejiang centring on Shanghai, is now operating a container shipping network with over 900 lanes, covering more than 180 countries and regions in the world. There are 11 ports with a 100 million tonne throughput and above in the Yangtze River Delta region, which are Shanghai, Ningbo-Zhoushan, Huzhou, Jiaxing river port, Suzhou, Nantong, Nanjing, Lianyungang, Jiangyin, Zhenjiang and Taizhou. As of 2011, there have been 15,478 operating berths at the region, 4.53 time of the number in 1996. In 2011, ports in Yangtze River Delta handled 3.76 billion tonnes of cargo, accounting for 37.42 per cent in China's total, 11 times of that in 1996. Their collective container throughput was 61.8 million TEU, taking up 37.69 per cent in the national total, 25.04 times that in 1996. Wang Mingzhi, director of Shanghai port cluster administration authority, said that Shanghai's throughput has remained on top of the world for seven years in a row. The percentage of Shanghai and Ningbo-Zhoushan in the world's top 10 ports' container throughput has expanded from 1996's 4.9 per cent to 23.8 per cent. The Yangtze River Delta ports will continue to strengthen their cooperation, improve their distribution network, and work together to build an information service platform in the future, and to encourage cooperation between shipping lines and port operators.
The Ministry of Transport has pledged to work close together with government of Shanghai, Zhejiang and Jiangsu to accomplish the goal of building Shanghai into the world shipping centre by 2020.