Chinese authorities plan to invest 1.8 billion yuan (about HK$1.71 billion) to build a new deep-water container port to transform Shanghai into a world-class and major international shipping centre.
Construction in phase one includes building five berths of 15- metre draught which will be completed by the end of the 10th Five-Year Plan in 2005.
Shanghai vice-mayor, Han Zheng, said the new port would become accessible to mega container vessels with capacities of between 5,000 and 6,000 teu (20- foot equivalent unit), popularly known as fifth and sixth generation containers vessels.
The port project will give Shanghai an additional 38.7 square kilometres in dock land. The first phase of the project, with an investment of 200 million yuan, was completed in June. The peninsula will stretch into a 30- km belt from Shi Pile Port in eastern Shanghai's Nanhui District to north of Hangzhou Bay.
Shanghai port, which handled 4.21 million teu last year, is also stepping up efforts to become an international shipping hub because of fierce competition from neighbouring ports, such as Kobe, Tokyo and Yokohama in Japan, and Pusan in South Korea.
Shanghai port is expected to handle more than 5 million teu this year and 8.5 million teu a year by 2005.