Tianjin Port bucks downturn

China - Tianjin Port, the largest in north China is seemingly bucking the current global downturn, reporting an increase in shipping container throughput in 2008.

The Chinese port handled a total of 354 million tons of cargo and 8.5 million twenty-foot equivalent (TEU) units of containers in the past year, said a Tianjin Port Group official to Xinhua.

This figure sees Tianjin Port's container traffic rising 19.7% year-on-year.

In 2007, Tianjin Port handled 300 million tons of cargo and 7.1 million TEUs of container cargo, which put it in the sixth and 20th places in the world, respectively.

According to Xinhua, Tianjin Port opened in 1952, as it was a small shallow-water harbour capable of handling less than 700,000 tons of cargo a year, but has since transformed into a deep-water port with many specialised berths.