International Cargo Seaport: Rizhao Port

Rizhao Port is a natural deep-water seaport in Rizhao City, Shandong, China. Being one of the major seaports on the eastern coasts of China, the Port of Rizhao is one of the busiest seaports in China due to its strategic location and scale of operations.

About Rizhao Port

The location of the Port is in the city of its namesake, Rizhao, a prefecture-level city in Shandong Province, China. The port itself is located on the shores of the Yellow Sea, a sea between Mainland China and the Korean Peninsula.

The city of Rizhao itself is located in the southwest of Qingdao, south of Weifang, and east and northeast of Linyi. In the same regard, the city and port of Rizhao are located in the Shandong Peninsula, which creates open access to the Bohai Sea in the north and the Yellow Sea in the south.

The History

Compared to other ports in China that have long historical records since the past Chinese dynasties, the history of the Port of Rizhao is younger than most. While the city’s history itself has gone back thousands of years since the emergence of the ancient Dawenkou and Longshan cultures, the city’s port itself was only founded in the second half of the 20^th century.

The construction of the modern port began in 1982, and the port began its cargo operations in 1986. Before the formation of the Rizhao Port Group that currently handles the operation of the port, the port was previously managed by the Rizhao Port Authority and the Lanshan Port Authority.

In 2006, the port managed to handle cargo volumes worth more than 0.1 billion tons 2006 and 0.35 billion tons in 2016, thus proving the port’s capability in handling a significant amount of cargo trade and shipment activities both on the national and international scale.

Volume of Transaction in Rizhao Port

In 2021, it reported 490.000 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) throughput of cargo by November, the steady growth of throughput in the entire year. Beginning the year by having 430.000 TEUs in January 2021, there were some trends of TEUs decrease in February and October 2021, with the lowest decrease taking place in February from 430.000 to 340.000 TEUs.

Based on these growth trends, the port managed to reach an 8% year-on-year in container throughput in the months of FY2021.

Interesting Facts

Over the past few years, China has implemented its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) to expand the foreign trade routes and intensity from China to other countries. In this regard, the Port of Rizhao occupies an important position as an essential seaport for BRI and as a major bridgehead of the New Euro-Asian Continental Bridge.

Being a seaport close to major tourist spots in the city, it provides easy access to visitors who would like to visit and stay. Going north from the port, major tourist destinations such as Wanpingkou Lagoon, Olympic Water Sports Park, Botanical Garden, Rizhao Ocean Park, Wanpingkou Ocean Park, and other sea-related tourist spots mark the city’s sea-derived uniqueness.