China’s Guangdong province has made a plan to integrate the port assets in the province following similar moves from other provinces including Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Liaoning and Fujian, which have all completed the integration of local port assets in recent years.
According to a draft plan issued by the transport authority of Guangdong, the government will use Guangzhou Port Group and establish a new Shenzhen Port Group as two main entities to integrate all the port assets in the province including seaports Guangzhou Port, Shenzhen Port, Zhuhai Port, Shantou Port and Zhanjiang Port, as well as river ports Foshan Port and Zhaoqing Port.
Guangdong is a major shipping gateway in Southeast China, with the ports in the province completing total cargo throughput and container througput of 1.98bn tones and 66.27m teu in 2017, ranked second and first respectively among all Chinese provinces.
China’s central government has accelerated the consolidation process of local ports as part of plans to reform state-owned enterprises. So far, 18 provincial level regions with sea or river ports have been ordered by central government to ramp up mergers. The consolidation is also seen as an important part of China’s Belt and Road initiative.
