Xinhua News Agency: Reference News Special Report | Moving 'Haikou' to 'doorstep' - Greater Bay Area Port Cluster Accelerates International Economic and Trade Cooperation

Ports are fundamental and hub facilities, and an important support for economic development. On the coast of the South China Sea, Guangzhou Port, Shenzhen Port and Hong Kong Port are located at the mouth of the the Pearl River River. They form a chain of pearls and anchor the vast territory of the Guangdong Hong Kong Macao Bay Area.
Tower cranes stand tall, sirens roar, and loaded cargo ships of ten thousand tons enter and exit the busy golden waterway. The three world-class ports are not only trade hubs connecting the five continents, but also symbols of the continuous vitality of the Chinese economy.
The Outline Development Plan for the Guangdong Hong Kong Macao Greater Bay Area proposes to enhance the international competitiveness of the Pearl River Delta port cluster, with a focus on major coastal ports, and improve the collection and distribution networks of inland waterways, port railways, highways, and other transportation systems. Today, six cross river and cross sea routes, including the Hong Kong Zhuhai Macao Bridge and the Shenzhen China Channel, connect the east and west sides of the the Pearl River Estuary. Multimodal transport modes, such as sea rail combined transport and road water combined transport, are developing rapidly, constantly injecting strong momentum into the high-quality development of the ports in the Guangdong Hong Kong Macao Greater Bay Area.
'Port' connects the world - international routes reach the globe
The Guangdong Hong Kong Macao Greater Bay Area port cluster includes ten major ports, including Hong Kong Port, Guangzhou Port, Shenzhen Port, Dongguan Port, Zhuhai Port, Huizhou Port, Foshan Port, Zhongshan Port, Jiangmen Port, and Zhaoqing Port. Nowadays, various ports have formed a collaborative development pattern of "differentiated division of labor and complementary advantages", jointly building a dynamic world-class port cluster ecosystem.
Ports are the barometer of foreign trade, with about 90% of China's foreign trade imports and exports completed by sea. As one of the regions with the highest degree of openness and strongest economic vitality in China, the Guangdong Hong Kong Macao Greater Bay Area closely connects China's strong manufacturing capabilities, vast markets, and global demand through its well connected international shipping routes, injecting strong momentum into economic development.
Statistics show that from January to November this year, the foreign trade container throughput of Guangzhou Port was 13.04 million TEUs, a year-on-year increase of 19.23%; The total container throughput of Shenzhen Port in Hong Kong was 32.4106 million TEUs, a year-on-year increase of 6.57%.
There is an old saying in the port and shipping industry: the size of a port depends on its throughput; Whether the port is strong or not depends on the containers. The cargo throughput measures the "size" and "scale" of a port, while the container throughput reflects the "quality" and "level" of the port. It is a key indicator for measuring a port's position, operational efficiency, modernization level, and support for regional high-end industries in the international trade network.
The "Comprehensive Evaluation Report on World Class Ports (2025)" jointly released by the China Economic Information Society and the Water Transport Science Research Institute of the Ministry of Transport shows that in 2024, the container throughput of Shenzhen Port, Guangzhou Port, and Hong Kong Port will rank fourth, sixth, and twelfth in the world, respectively.
Behind the long-term dominance of the three major ports in the Guangdong Hong Kong Macao Greater Bay Area is the constantly increasing number of international air routes. Guangzhou Port is an important node of the "the Belt and Road" initiative and the largest comprehensive main hub port in South China. "In recent years, the demand for foreign trade cargo transportation between China and the countries and regions jointly building the 'the Belt and Road' has been increasing, driving the throughput of foreign trade cargo and foreign trade containers of Guangzhou Port to continue to rise." Mo Bin, vice minister of the production business department of Guangzhou Port Group, said that Guangzhou Port has been opening new routes in the past two years. At present, 150 of the 180 international routes cover more than 100 countries and regions jointly building the 'the Belt and Road'.
On November 17th, during the 2025 World Shipping Congress, Hong Kong port operators signed two memorandums of cooperation with the Western Land Sea New Corridor and the Beibu Gulf Port in Guangxi to create a high-quality rail sea intermodal route connecting Sichuan, Chongqing, Guangxi, and Hong Kong, and to promote the interconnection of sea rail intermodal cargo information between ports in Hong Kong and Guangxi.
As a global shipping hub, Hong Kong serves as a two-way bridge connecting the mainland with the global market. Nowadays, Hong Kong has formed a leading industrial cluster in the fields of ship management, financing, insurance, etc., ranking fourth in the world in the International Shipping Center Development Index for six consecutive years. The rise of Chinese industrial giants, service industries, and financial institutions further highlights Hong Kong's position as a "super contact".
Walking into the Yantian International Container Terminal in Shenzhen, along the several kilometer long coastline, ocean going giant ships line up one after another, shore cranes operate non-stop, and traffic flows through the gates like weaving. This once closed and backward mudflat along Dapeng Bay has become a world-class port, with 20 large deepwater berths, and it has become normal for six 400 meter long "Big Macs" to berth at the same time.
As one of the most densely populated international shipping ports in southern China, Pang Ning, Deputy General Manager of the Business Department of Yantian International Container Terminal, said that Yantian Port is one of the largest single container terminals in the world, responsible for over one-third of Guangdong Province's foreign trade import and export volume, with hundreds of shipping routes connecting various parts of the world every week.
'Port' inherits the past and present - Smart docks are becoming increasingly 'smart'
Guangzhou, as one of the starting points of the ancient Maritime Silk Road, had fleets sailing to Southeast Asia and South Asian countries as early as the Qin and Han dynasties. In the Song Dynasty, Guangzhou was already a "department store" and an "Oriental commercial city", and Guangzhou Port became the largest foreign trade port in the country. During the Qing Dynasty's "One Port Trade" period, Guangzhou was the only port for trade between China and the Western world. After more than 2000 years of prosperity, Guangzhou Port is now witnessing the rise of a world-class port cluster in the Guangdong Hong Kong Macao Greater Bay Area.
Empowered by technology, modern ports are becoming increasingly "smart". According to statistics from the Ministry of Transport, China has built 60 automated ports, and the construction of smart ports continues to lead the world.
Not long ago, the fourth phase of the fully automated terminal in Nansha Port Area of Guangzhou Port added 20 Taipei Dou Navigation unmanned driving intelligent guided transport vehicles (IGVs), bringing the total number to 158. This marks the completion of the largest IGV fleet system for a single terminal in China, reducing labor costs in the port area by 70%.
The reporter saw at the terminal that after the container ship docked, the quay crane accurately grabbed the containers on board according to the instructions automatically issued by the information system, and automatically placed them on the IGV. The IGV used intelligent algorithms to automatically plan the path and shuttle between the terminal yards, transporting the containers to the designated location. The operation area was empty, and the whole process was like flowing clouds and water.
This terminal is the first newly constructed automated terminal in the Guangdong Hong Kong Macao Greater Bay Area, which will be completed and accepted in November 2024. Yang Xuan, a crane driver at Guangzhou Port, said that traditional dock crane drivers need to work at heights. In the cab, which is over 40 meters high, they bend down and look down at the bottom, operating equipment to grab containers. Now, at an intelligent control center several hundred meters away from the ship's docking location, he can complete the operation. A shore bridge is equipped with 26 cameras, which can achieve comprehensive monitoring of the on-site situation, not only greatly saving manpower, but also greatly improving safety.
It is reported that the fourth phase of the fully automated terminal in Nansha Port Area of Guangzhou Port integrates cutting-edge technologies such as Beidou navigation, 5G communication, IoT perception, big data analysis, artificial intelligence, and unmanned driving, and has created 91 patents, including 33 invention patents.
Walking into the Shenzhen Mawan Smart Port Container Terminal, which faces Nansha Port across the Lingdingyang Ocean, one can see automated gantry cranes loading and unloading goods in an orderly manner, and autonomous trucks shuttling through the operation area according to instructions, smoothly transporting containers. The dock site is busy and orderly, and the on-site lighthouse has installed 5G base stations covering the whole Hong Kong, providing reliable and stable signal guarantee for the efficient operation of the port.
It is reported that after completing the intelligent transformation in 2021, Mawan Smart Port has gathered 9 intelligent elements such as the CMB operating system and the Beidou system, achieving significant results: reduced personnel dispatch and attendance, reduced safety risks, significantly reduced carbon emissions, and greatly improved operational efficiency.
At Jiangmen High tech Port located in the Guangdong Hong Kong Macao Greater Bay Area, Sinotrans South China Co., Ltd. is promoting AI technology and scenario based applications, deeply integrating artificial intelligence applications (DeepSeek) with its own operating system to solve the efficiency bottlenecks, high dependence on manual labor, and lagging resource allocation in traditional dock operations.
The company's public support engineer Ye Zengjian said that relying on the company's "Port and Shipping AI Assistant Xiaoyun", whether it is querying berth plans, container dynamics, or loading and unloading ship progress, customers only need to input simple natural language instructions, and the system can quickly provide accurate answers, improving information query efficiency and convenience.
The DeepSeek hybrid model is applied to the fully automated terminal of Guangzhou Nansha Port Phase IV, which can analyze the equipment situation, conduct accurate monitoring and fault warning by learning the fault hotspot map of the equipment, upgrade traditional passive maintenance to active prevention, and provide intelligent guarantee for the safe operation of port equipment.
'Port' connects both inside and outside - inland enterprises also have access to the sea
In the Greater Bay Area of Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao, shipping and railway have built a logistics channel for Chinese enterprises to connect with countries and regions along the "the Belt and Road". The Greater Bay Area port cluster has also expanded its port service functions to China's inland and inland rivers through multimodal transport modes such as sea rail intermodal transport, public water intermodal transport, and water water intermodal transport.
At Yantian Port in Shenzhen, there are not only the sirens of cargo ships, but also the roar of trains. The 23 kilometer Pingyan Railway can directly enter the port area and is closely connected to the national railway network, connecting to the vast inland source of goods.
The 'Chongqing Shenzhen Hong Kong Express' and' Chengdu Shenzhen Hong Kong Express' that have been successively opened in the past two years have shortened the transportation time from Chengdu Chongqing to Yantian Port Area in Shenzhen and Kwai Tsing Port Area in Hong Kong to 2 and 3 days respectively, providing stable and efficient low-carbon overseas channels for inland foreign trade enterprises. Pang Ning said that Yantian Port has opened 34 sea rail intermodal routes, serving the Greater Bay Area, central and southwestern economic regions.
The ocean line "holds hands" with the railway line, which means moving the sea outlet to the doorstep of inland entrepreneurs. In March of this year, the Guangzhou Port Liuzhou Inland Port was unveiled, offering sea rail intermodal trains from Liuzhou, Guangxi to Nansha Port, Guangzhou. Local export goods from Liuzhou can be transported directly to Nansha Port via railway. In Hunan, after the export goods of enterprises are packed in Zhuzhou, Yueyang, Hengyang, Huaihua and other places, they can be transported point-to-point by railway through the "Hunan Guangdong Maritime Silk Road" logistics special train to Guangzhou Port, seamlessly connecting with the sea freight route, achieving a 5-day delivery from Hunan to Haiphong, Vietnam and 7-day delivery to Southeast Asia such as Linchaban, Thailand.
Behind the acceleration of goods circulation efficiency is the continuous improvement of customs clearance facilitation measures. The Pearl River Delta gathers numerous large manufacturing enterprises, such as Shunde in Foshan, known as the "Capital of Chinese Home Appliances". Companies such as Midea and Hisense have set up factories here, and cities such as Dongguan, Zhongshan, and Huizhou are also home to manufacturing enterprises. These enterprises have a strong demand for improving the customs clearance efficiency of sea freight exports.
Pan Feng, Deputy Director of the Port Supervision Department of Shenzhen Customs, introduced that in October 2019, Shenzhen Customs took the lead in exploring the "Huizhou Salt Combination Port" project in Yantian Port and Huizhou Port within the customs area. The "yard" of Yantian Port was extended to Huizhou Port, and after the customs clearance procedures were completed at Huizhou Port, the goods could be transferred to Yantian Port by barge for shipment on large ships, breaking down the spatial barriers between ports.
In June of this year, the "Hanyang 981" ship, fully loaded with goods, set sail from Huangpu Port in Zhongshan and headed towards Yantian Port Area in Shenzhen. After being loaded with international cargo ships in the port area, it arrived directly overseas, marking the official opening of the 15th combined port of Yantian Port Area of Shenzhen Port Group, "Zhongshan Huangpu Shenzhen Yantian".
Under the "Greater Bay Area Combined Port" customs clearance mode, after completing customs inspection at Zhongshan Huangpu Port, goods can be directly connected to international routes in Yantian Port Area, quickly reaching various parts of the world. Relying on the mutual recognition of customs supervision between the two regions and the customs clearance system of "one declaration, one inspection, one release", goods arriving at Yantian Port do not need to be declared again, which can shorten the logistics time by 2 to 3 days, significantly improve customs clearance efficiency, reduce enterprise logistics costs, and improve trade facilitation level.
By collaborating with other customs in the province to share port codes, the customs clearance, inspection, and supervision of combined port goods have been extended to ports along the Yangtze River. This not only solves customs clearance difficulties for manufacturing enterprises in a timely manner, but also fully activates logistics resources such as warehousing and loading and unloading in various ports along the Yangtze River. It can be said that the "all-weather" waterway transfer of goods between various ports in the Bay Area has been achieved, seamlessly connecting river and sea logistics, "said Deng Xiaopeng, head of the Transport Tools and Logistics Monitoring Department of the Shenzhen Customs Port Supervision Office.
Fu Zhengping, Dean of the Comprehensive Research Institute of Free Trade Zone at Sun Yat sen University, said that the Guangdong Hong Kong Macao Greater Bay Area has built a globally leading port cluster and connected the inland hinterland through multimodal transport, continuously enhancing the radiation and driving effect of "internal and external connections", creating new economic channels, triggering regional economic restructuring, and accelerating international economic and trade cooperation.