By Zhu Beining and Peng Junjun
A few days ago, Nantong harbour general ning (2035) was approved officially. It is the first approved general planning of harbour since the new batch of harbour planning revision was started in places in Jiangsu.
Development plan
In China’s territory, where the Yangtze River joins the sea, Nantong is located at the ‘T’ section of the golden water channel and the long coastline.
In 1904, national industrialist Zhang Jian established Nantong harbour. After economic reform and open up, the 1st ten thousand ton berth, the 1st one hundred thousand ton berth and the first 200 thousand ton berth of the Yangtze River were all built in Nantong harbour. It is indeed ‘the first harbour of the Yangtze River’.
As early as 2006, Ministry of Transport and Jiangsu government approved general planning of Nantong Harbour together. It helped and promoted the construction and development of Nantong harbour. In the past few years, as domestic and foreign macro situation development, outside environment change and inside development problems appear, the previous Nantong harbour general planning cannot satisfy the needs of the development of the harbour.
In November 2019, Nantong government submitted the planning to Ministry of transport and Jiangsu government. After several rounds of evaluation and research, in January 2022 it was approved officially.
Four districts in one harbour
The planning uses ‘promote general protection, without large-scale development’ as the guidance, implements characteristic dislocation, transformation and upgrading, conglomerate and efficient, green and low carbon development idea, initiates the development trend of Nantong harbour as ‘develop the Yangtze River and the sea, with linkage between them’.
Director of Nantong transportation bureau harbour department Zhang Jianqiang said that the planning reflected the general protection development idea, some of the industrial coastline near the harbour will be changed to public berth coastline; in the major city area, river harbour transport function will exit fully, port shoreline in riverside secondary protection zone of drinking water will withdraw fully, more than 50 km of port shoreline will withdraw along the river.
The planning specified the general planning layout of ‘four districts in one harbour’ of Nantong harbour, 9 riverside harbour districts were integrated to 3 harbour districts(Rugao harbour district, Nantong harbour district, and Tonghai harbour district), 3 coastal port areas were integrated to 1 port area (Tongzhou bay area).
On the basis of river and sea development, all harbour districts will implement ‘develop dislocation’: Tonghai port district focuses on riverside container transport, Rugao port district focuses on Yangtze River middle and upper stream dry bulk cargo transport, Nantong port district keeps part of the harbour industries, focuses on urban cruise passenger transport; coastal Tongzhou bay area starts from serving port-centered industries, is the major ‘new estuary’ of our city, focuses on cargo including container, dry bulk cargo, liquid bulk cargo, LNG and break bulk cargo, will develop to a large scale modern integrated harbour gradually.
The planning presents multiple highlights: to optimize Nantong harbour and Tongzhou bay harbour district positioning, improve the transport development level of Nantong, integrate harbour resources, promote integrated and high quality development.
Large deep water harbour
‘The planning was approved, Nantong harbour had a rare opportunity.’ Zhang Jianqiang had deep feelings. In 2021, the cargo throughput of Nantong harbour is 310 million tons. The container throughput exceeded 2 million standard containers for the first time. Throughput of LNG exceeded 9 million tons for the first time. They all broke historical record. In the planning, it is expected in 2025 the throughput of Nantong harbour will reach 400 million tons, the container throughput will be 5 million standard containers; in 2035, the throughput will be 530 million tons, the container throughput will be 15 million standard containers.
Facing the sea, expect the future, Tongzhou bay large deep water harbour construction has entered a ‘fast lane’. on 22 December last year, Tongzhou bay new estuary Lvsi port was open for operation, two 100 thousand ton general wharves were in operation. According to the planning, as Wangcanghong channel and a batch of deep water ports were constructed one by one, Tongzhou bay new estuary and a batch of major port-centered industrial projects will be accelerated, in the future it will develop to a large modern integrated harbour gradually. It is expected that during the ‘fourteenth five year plan’ period, the investment on Nantong harbour construction will exceed 20 billion Yuan.
