Ladies and gentlemen:
Port of Shanghai port is same as other ports in China, that have benefited from China's reform and opening up, development policies, sustained increase of national strength, continued development of foreign trade and economic development of Yangtze River Delta where Port of Shanghai is located and Yangtze River Basin. This year, total cargo throughput is expected to reach 560 million tons, of which harbor throughput is about 490 million tons; container throughput is expected to exceed 25.5 million TEUs and is expected to become the world's second largest container port. In December, the bidding A of third-phase of Yangshan Deepwater Port of four large container berths will be completed and put into trial production. Meanwhile Yangshan Deepwater Port District will form 13 large container berths with the pier length of 4,350 meters. Yangshan Deepwater Port District is expected to complete 5.8 million TEUs in this year.
As Port of Shanghai has developed to today's size, conflicts and major problems of development we are facing have also changed greatly than 10 years ago while scale and quantity is no longer the only pursuing goal.
?We have become increasingly concerned with the urban road traffic and the environment pressure brought by the port expansion.
?We have already begun deep exploring in port's responsibilities in city's development.
?We have already begun to rethink and outline the development direction and development ideas of the future Port of Shanghai .
Obviously, compared with the development of infrastructure construction and production, the current maritime services development and soft environment construction of Port of Shanghai in remained relatively lagging behind. In the functions of modern shipping services of high-tech, high-value-added, high human capital and high-integration, compared with London, Hong Kong and other world-renowned shipping center our level of internationalization is relatively low; apart from China Shipping, COSCO, Shanghai International Port Group and a few of other shipping and port enterprises, we lack of leading enterprises with world major impact and speaking power and lack of well-known international shipping service brand; shipping finance and maritime law system has not been fully integrated with the international common practice; progress is slow in further expanding shipping transactions and trading; management system of shipping center construction is not smooth and does not have enough impetus for the shipping services industry; professionals system has gaps, and so on.
Therefore, whether it is from the national macro strategic level or from the own development needs of Prot of Shanghai, we are required to, under the guidance of scientific development concept, reconsider the development of Port of Shanghai, speed up the transformation of the port development mode and development focus, further emancipate our minds, transform our ideas and promote realistically.
Firstly, we should establish the concept of joint development of the Yangtze River Delta ports and coordinated development of Northeast Asia regional ports.
The competition between ports is inevitable. However, competition is not sole purpose and best means to deal with the relationship between ports. In order to deal with the complex environment of economic globalization, enhance more effectively port's modern technology level and capacity of dealing with environment, safety and other aspects, build a modern port collaborative information network and logistics network and reduce until avoid blind competition, communication and cooperation should be strengthened between ports to achieve a win-win situation. This is the exhibition of progress of human civilization. Port of Shanghai , as a large international port, has the obligation and necessity of strengthening on multi-level joint development and coordinated development with other ports.
-- On the side of Yangtze River Delta, the focus is to coordinate the implementation of the National Port layout planning and center around Shanghai International Shipping Center to work together to promote the construction of container transport system, staple bulk cargo transport system and river/sea combined transport system within the region .
-- On the aspect of Yangtze River Basin , the focus is to improve the service capacity of Port of Shanghai to the development of economy and foreign trade of Yangtze River . Also work with ports along the Yangtze River to promote the construction of Gold waterway and encourage various types of port enterprises in Shanghai to strengthen capital, business and technical cooperation with ports along the Yangtze River .
-- On the level coastal region, focus on handling the positioning of Hong Kong, Tianjin and Dalian in the construction of international shipping center and strengthen cooperation and exchanges in order to enhance service ability and level to hinterland within their respective regions.
-- On the level of Northeast Asia region, focus on good handling of competition and cooperation relationship between ports of the Republic of Korea and Japan . We should be more concerned with the bilateral and multilateral cooperation of China-Korea and China-Japan, and work together to build a Northeast Asian logistics network to lower the port logistics costs in order to benefit the trade of China-Korea and China-Japan.
Secondly, we should put port's soft environment in a prominent important position and vigorously push forward.
Shanghai is already an international hub port, but is not yet a strong port with international competitiveness. This is because the soft power of Port of Shanghai is not strong enough, which is a problem we must face. Therefore, Shanghai municipal government and relevant departments have made clear to put soft environment construction in a prominent important position and to vigorously promote within their own responsible scope of work:
-- Further improve the legal environment for the port and enhance the level of administration according to law from government management sectors as well as raise awareness, ability of servicing enterprises and lift the transparency of government information;
-- Further improve the environment of the port, vigorously implement risk management pilot, make efforts to promote cross-regional customs reform and continue to improve clearance efficiency of customs;
-- Further optimize the market environment of port, strengthen market rules and market supervision, give play to society's intermediary effect and strengthen the construction of social credit system of port enterprises;
-- Further improve the information environment of port, speed up the informationalization construction of port, focus on building the Shanghai's electronic port platform, improve the building of port EDI system, speed up the building of information network of Yangtze River Delta port and strength information connectivity with the Yangtze River Basin;
(October 24,2007)
