Shanghai's newly opened international cruise ship terminal, built at a cost of US$260 million, will not be able to receive the world's largest vessels because of a nearby bridge.
The complex, which took more than four years to build, aims to give the city a bigger share of the cruise ship business in Asia and help rejuvenate the North Bund area.
But ships taller than 50 metres above the waterline would not be able to pass under the Yangpu Bridge, which spans the Huangpu River north of the terminal, an official confirmed. The Huangpu flows north to the Yangtze River Delta and then into the Pacific Ocean.
Zhou Weiming, the terminal's operations director, said larger cruise ships must dock at Waigaoqiao port north of the terminal.
'This will more or less affect Shanghai's cruise industry, as larger cruise ships usually have ... better facilities,' he said. 'But since some shipping companies know about this situation in Shanghai, they often change to smaller ships.'
As companies build larger ships, the city will miss out.
'That's what no consultation gets you,' Paul French, publishing and marketing director of Access Asia, said in a weekly newsletter. 'The terminal will be home to a plethora of luxury goods shops, and several hotels have sprung up nearby - if only there was no Yangpu Bridge.'