(Yicai) Dec. 23 -- The port of Shanghai has become the first in the world to have achieved an annual container throughput of more than 50 million twenty-foot equivalent units, the local Shanghai Observer reported. 

Shanghai’s port container throughput exceeded 50 million TEUs this year as of yesterday, after a container from an ocean-going ship of Cosco Shipping Holdings was unloaded at the Phase IV automated terminal of the city’s Yangshan Port.

Thanks to the rapid growth of the Chinese economy and the expansion and upgrading of Chinese port facilities, Shanghai’s port container throughput soared 50-fold in the past three decades, from one million TEUs in 1994 to 10 million TEUs in 2003, 40 million TEUs in 2017, and 50 million TEUs this year.

Shanghai has remained the world’s largest seaport by container throughput for the 15th consecutive year.

Since the beginning of December, all terminals of Yangshan Port have been extremely busy, with ships often queuing up for vacant berths, according to information from the Yangshan Border Inspection Station.

Yangshan Port has completed the inspection of over 9,860 inbound and outbound international ships so far this year, up 5 percent from a year earlier, data from the Yangshan Border Inspection Station also showed.

Based on Yangshan Port’s average daily berthing volume of over 20 international ships, it is expected to reach an annual berthing volume of more than 10,000 ships this year, surpassing the 10,000-ship milestone for the first time, said Wei Rongchun, deputy captain of the First Duty Team of the Yangshan Border Inspection Station.

Editors: Tang Shihua, Futura Costaglione