Shanghai Becomes World's Busiest Container Port

Shanghai's rise to the top marked the shift of global manufacturing to China, which is why so many US import supply chains still begin at Chinese ports. The port handled 29.05 million TEU in 2010, up about 16% from 2009, edging past Singapore's roughly 28.4 million TEU. Much of the growth moved through the Yangshan deep-water terminals offshore. For importers, Shanghai is one of the most common origin ports in ocean freight quotes, and congestion or closures there ripple quickly into vessel schedules, container availability, and the landed cost of goods bound for US warehouses.

• Twenty-Foot Equivalent UnitTEUContainer capacity unit of one 20-foot box
• Landed CostTotal cost to get a product ready to sell
• Full Container LoadFCLOne shipper's goods in a whole container

• Yangshan Deep-Water Port2005 · Shanghai builds deep berths on islands offshore
• China Joins the WTO2001 · China becomes the 143rd member of the WTO
• Port of Rotterdam as World's Busiest Port1962–2004 · Rotterdam leads the world in cargo for four decades

• Treaty of Nanking1842 · Opium War treaty that opened China's treaty ports

1. Port of Shanghai (Wikipedia) en.wikipedia.org
2. Shanghai surpasses Singapore as world's busiest port (Bloomberg) bloomberg.com