September 22, 2003

By Samantha Enslin

Durban - The Durban port will now be able to draw on the expertise and experience of the Guangzhou Harbor Bureau, one of China's largest ports, after a sister port agreement was signed between the two on Friday.

Basil Ndlovu, the National Ports Authority's head of the Durban port, said the relationship with Guangzhou Harbor would be an important one, providing an opportunity to exchange information and expertise.

A large percentage of South Africa's trade, in terms of rand value, moved through the Durban port and of the tonnage it handled, the majority came from the Far East, Ndlovu said.

The port of Guangzhou is situated in the Pearl River Delta on mainland China and has terminals along a 300km stretch of the river. As part one of China's economic and technology development zones, the port has experienced rapid growth in the past few years.

The port is surrounded by the cities of Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Dongguan, Zhongshan, Foshan and Jiangmen and is 100km from Hong Kong.

Huang Guo Sheng, the director-general of the Guangzhou Harbor Bureau, said by the end of this year the port would have achieved throughput of 170 million tons of cargo and 2.8 million 20-foot equivalent units or containers.  

The Durban harbour sees throughput of about 1.3 million tons a year. The distance around the port is 21km.

Durban harbour has 57 berths and over 4 000 commercial vessels call in each year.

The Guangzhou port, consists of 643 berths and 173km of shipping channel, including 155km of seagoing shipping channel.

It is primarily a transshipment hub port where goods are shipped from the delta to Hong Kong from where they are transported around the world.

Ports in China are the responsibility of local authorities and the Guangzhou municipal government will spend more than $964 million over the next few years to expand and upgrade its port to help it preserve its status as an important logistics centre in southern China and Asia.

The investment will focus on deepening marine routes, constructing a new oil wharf and chemical dock and rebuild three 35 000-ton container berths.