As one of the key industrial parks in the Hainan Free Trade Port, the Yangpu Economic Development Zone is an important window on the province's progress in opening up to the outside world. The international shipping hub has attracted a wide variety of types of business including ship making and grain and oil processing.

On September 9, a ship named FANYA SHANGHAI loaded with nearly 4,000 TEUs of cargo, including more than 750 TEUs of international goods such as wood pulp from Finland, grain and oil products from Singapore, and polyethylene from Indonesia sailed from Yangpu to Qinzhou Port in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. The ship’s capacity for loading domestic and international trade containers on the same ship made a new record at the Yangpu International Container Terminal.

The FANYA SHANGHAI ship being loaded with cargo at the Yangpu International Container Terminal. Photo / COSCO SHIPPING LINES

Since the first transportation route shipping domestic and international goods on the same ship launched in Yangpu in April 2020, COSCO SHIPPING Lines has opened seven more transportation routes following the same model from Haikou, Nansha, Qinzhou, Shantou, Tianjin, Jinzhou, and Lianyungang. Using this model, domestic and international containerized goods can be stowed and transported on the same ship, which both optimizes usage of ship space and relieves transportation capacity shortages.

Opening this new route for transporting domestic and international shipments on the same ship provides a wider variety of logistics options for ASEAN market goods to enter the domestic market and further enriches China's import sources. The advantage of the Hainan Free Trade Port’s location in the RCEP region will further provide strong support for Yangpu to develop as a regional international container shipping hub.