China’s Shandong province is planning to establish a provincial port company to integrate the major port operators in the region under one roof.
The new port company will integrate three major ports Qingdao, Rizho and Yantai as well as smaller ports including Weihai, Weifang and Dongying.
The decision by Shandong government follows a wave of port asset integration in China in response to the central government’s call to shed overcapacity. In the past two years, Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Fujian and Liaoning have all set up their own provincial port operating platform.
Shandong is a major shipping province in China. According to statistics from Shandong government, coastal ports in the province completed annual cargo throughput of 1.5bn tons in the year of 2017, up 5.4% on 2016. The three major ports Qingdao, Rizhao and Yantai ranked fifth, ninth and tenth in terms of annual cargo throughput among Chinese ports.
