Nansha International Cruise Ship Terminal to add 2 berths

Two new berths will be completed at the Nansha International Cruise Ship Terminal by the fourth quarter of 2019, according to Chen Hongxian, head of the Guangzhou Port Authority, during his thematic speech at the Guangzhou Library on July 7.

The project, located on the west side of the Humen Bridge, includes one new 100,000-ton cruise berth and one new 225,000-ton cruise berth with a planned annual throughput of 750,000 passengers.

In 2017, Nansha's international cruise tourism continued to develop rapidly, with 122 vessels departing and over 400,000 passengers passing through the terminal, an increase of 17 percent and 24 percent, respectively.

According to Chen, the two projects will help the terminal process 750,000 to 1 million passengers annually by 2020.

In 2017, the cargo throughput of Guangzhou Port stood at 590 million tons, ranking third among China's coastal ports and fifth among global ports. Its container throughput exceeded 20 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) for the first time, reaching 20.37 million TEUs, and ranked fourth among China's coastal areas and seventh in the world.

By 2018, the cargo throughput of Guangzhou Port is expected to reach 610 million tons, and by 2020, it is expected to reach 650 million tons. It is hoped that Guangzhou Port's container throughput will reach 21.5 million TEUs by 2018 and 25 million TEUs by 2020.

The Pearl River Tour has become a calling card for Guangzhou, and in 2017, over 3.3 million tourists from across the world took Pearl River tours, said Chen. He also explained how the city will dig deep into its culture to create a world-class water tourism brand and promote the use of new energy cruise ships, such as electric vessels and hybrid ships, to protect the Pearl River while boosting local tourism.