Two deepwater ports in east China's Zhejiang Province, Ningbo and Zhoushan, were officially declared by the provincial vice governor to have been merged on Tuesday in a bid to create the third biggest port in the world.

The new port will be named "Ningbo-Zhoushan Port" and start formal operations on January 1, according to Wang Yongming.

"The ports' integration will accelerate China's endeavor to become a stronger country in the field of sea shipping," said Xu Zuyuan, vice minister of communications.

According to the provincial ports and shipping bureau, the cargo handling capacity of Ningbo Port is expected to exceed 270 million tons in 2005, ranking second in China, and Zhoushan Port is expected to handle over 80 million tons of cargo.

Currently, though they are located in the same sea area and share a navigation channel, they are separately administered, which Xinhua News Agency today said had greatly undermined their competitiveness.

It is estimated that over 100 billion yuan (US$12.6 billion) will be injected into the merger, which is expected to produce the third largest port in the world by 2010.

Currently, the biggest three ports are Shanghai, Singapore and Rotterdam in the Netherlands.

There were 591 berths in the two ports at the end of 2004, of which 53 were for over 10,000 tons.

After completion, the new port will be an integral part of the Shanghai International Shipping Center, as well as an important logistic and industrial base, said Lu Zushan, Zhejiang's governor.

According to Xu, the cargo and container handling capacity of China have both been listed as top in the world for three years. In 2005, 10 Chinese ports were registered as world-class, with handling capacity over 100 million tons.

China's ports are expected to handle 5 billion tons of cargo in 2005, 19.9 percent higher than that of last year, and 75 million TEU (twenty-foot equivalent unit, roughly 39 cubic meters) containers, up 21.3 percent on the previous year.

(Xinhua News Agency December 21, 2005)