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E China coastal county to develop deep-water port

By Chen Qide (China Daily Shanghai Bureau)
Updated: 2010-09-13 16:17

Rudong, a coastal county in Jiangsu province, has mapped out a blueprint to develop its deep-water Yangkou Port, which is taken as a strong stimulus to the local economic development.

Zhou Tiegen, Rudong Party secretary, is interviewed by media at the investment conference held in Shanghai at weekend. [Photo/China Daily Shanghai Bureau]

Rudong Party Secretary Zhou Tiegen said the port is expected to build 160 berths for ships ranging from 50,000 to 350,000 tonnages to call at through three deep-water channels.

"With such advantages, it will become an important deep-water port close to the Shanghai shipping center," said Zhou.

The huge port project is expected to take about 25 years to complete with an estimated investment of 30 billion yuan, he said.

Rudong held an investment conference in Shanghai at weekend to echo its port development project. Agreements about 30 projects were signed with a combined investment of 30 billion yuan.

A berth for 30,000 tonnages of ships and an LNG berth for 100,000 tonnages of ships have operated as an initial effort to serve the port's economic development zone.

A number of projects, each costing funds of more than 10 million yuan, will be launched soon to push forward the county's economic growth, said Chen Changlong, a senior official of the county.

Different from Shanghai's Yangshan Port which mainly serves container ships, Yangkou Port will focus on bulk freighters, LNG ships and tankers, Zhou said.

With such a port, Rudong is able to build an iron sand logistics center to serve the Yangtze Delta Region with an annual capability to handle 30 million tons to 50 million tons, he said.

Rudong will complete its LNG terminal valued at 6.1 billion yuan as a key part of port infrastructure facilities. A railway with an investment of 1.8 billion yuan will be completed to smooth the transport from port to nearby cities.

Meanwhile, it will inject additional 80 million yuan into the second phase of its 300-million-yuan wind power project, which is expected to reach sales of 800 million yuan to 1 billion yuan within three years, Chen said.

"Our aim is to build Asia's largest coastal wind power center in Rudong, which will be installed with 4,120 megawatts generating units," he said.

At present, 445 megawatts wind power generating units are in operation to have generated a combined electricity of 1.8 billion kilowatts. They have saved 720,000 tons of standard coal and 2 million tons of water, and reduced 2.16 million tons of carbon dioxide and 8,100 tons of sulphur dioxide.

Efforts will be made to push forward the projects which will generate electricity with tide, solar and garbage resources, he said.