A report from GLOBAL TIMES ONLINE:

Jining, east China's Shandong province, has made significant progress in 
leveraging the unique advantages of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal to build a 
shipping center of inland rivers in northern China, according to a press 
conference held by the Information Office of Jining Municipal People's 
Government on July 20.

The combined cargo throughput at ports in Jining rose 30.2 percent year on year 
to nearly 28.32 million tonnes between January and June this year, during which 
these ports handled 23,000 twenty-foot equivalent units of containers, up 168.9 
percent from the same period last year, an official said at the press 
conference.

The 14th Communist Party of China congress of Jining proposed unswervingly 
implementing the strategy for making breakthroughs in modern port and shipping 
logistics services, and established the modern port and shipping logistics 
development headquarters of Jining, aiming to pool citywide efforts to boost 
the development of the industry.

Officials disclosed at the conference that for speeding up the growth of 
Jining's modern port and shipping logistics industry, the city has divided 
Jining Port into eight port areas and determined various collection and 
distribution channels, providing guidance and foundation for the development 
and construction of Jining Port as well as efforts to effectively protect and 
rationally use shoreline resources.

In an effort to promote the upgrading of the modern port and shipping logistics 
industry, Jining has made scientific planning and promoted synergy between and 
in-depth integration of ports and industrial fields in the hinterland.   

Besides, the city has strived to improve the handling capacity of its ports, 
with efforts focused on the building of three port clusters with a capacity of 
more than 100 million tonnes. It has also endeavored to accelerate the 
upgrading and transformation of the Jining section of the Beijing-Hangzhou 
Grand Canal, among other major projects, expanded market for logistics services 
and trade, and built five major industrial parks to comprehensively facilitate 
the integrated development of ports and industries.

Moreover, Jining has established a smart trading platform for logistics 
services. During the first half of this year, 432,600 tonnes of goods were 
traded via the platform, with the total transaction value hitting 919 million 
yuan.

As the proportion of goods for trade in the total revenue of Jining Port and 
Shipping Development Group Co., Ltd., operator of ports in Jining, rises to 
96.96 percent, the city's ports are being transformed into ports with high 
added value and playing increasingly important roles in such industries as 
foreign trade and finance.

The modern port and shipping logistics development headquarters of Jining will 
further stimulate the endogenous impetus of Jining's modern port and shipping 
logistics industry and speed up the upgrading and comprehensive revitalization 
of inland river transportation, in a bid to form a modern comprehensive 
logistics paradigm, said Zhang Meng, deputy director of the office of the 
headquarters.

Source GLOBAL TIMES ONLINE