The best deepwater port along the several-thousand-kilometre-long coastline between Guangzhou and Ningbo, Xiamen Port is wide and deep, ice-free, and little silted. The 64.5 km natural coast lines around the port area maintains a depth of at least 12-meters.

Ships of 100-thousand tonnage can be anchored at the inner port, while 50,000 tonnage ships can pull in for loading and unloading. Xiamen Port now possesses 37 docks and wharves ranging from small to large sizes, of which 4 (including one container dock) are for 10,000 to 50,000- tonnage, and B for 1,000 to 5,000-tonnage vessels. A railway line for special use is available within the port area. The second phase of construction of Dongdu Harbour is under way.

With Fujian, Guangdong, Jiangxi, Zhejiang and Hunan provinces as its hinterland, Xiamen Port is open to navigation with more than 60 ports in 40-odd countries and regions worldwide, including Australia, Japan, Singapore, U.S.A., and Canada. Trade links have been established with more than 140 countries and regions and passenger routes linking Xiamen with Hong Kong, Shanghai, Wenzhou and Guangzhou, etc. are already in service.

Six Main Harbour Districts

At present there are six harbour districts: the Heping District for passenger transport, the export-oriented comprehensive Dongdu District, the Gaoqi District for railway-waterway coordinated transportation, the Xinglin District for industry, the Paitou District for building materials, the Songyu District for petroleum, the Haicang District for offshore industry, the Dayu District for large-scale container transhipment, and Liuwudian of Tong'an County. Together, they employ 5,000 staff members and workers under the management of the Harbour Bureau.

Equipment and Machinery

There are several hundred sets of various machinery and equipment such as 50-ton car cranes, 40-ton container bridge cranes, 35-ton container straddle carriers, 40-ton container fork trucks, 30.5 ton crane ships, 90-and 60-ton barge cranes, automatic bulk grain and fertilizer bagging equipment and an advanced stevedoring system on the coal wharf as well as computer data management network and other modernised management facilities.

Ports rapid development

Since China's modern economic reform began, Xiamen Port has made remarkable progress and development in all fields and entered into a historical stage to take off. The handling capacity of Xiamen's harbour in 1991 amounted to 5.7 million tons while 74,000 containers were handled, registering an increase of 9.9% and 64.8% over 1990 respectively. In 1993, the cargo throughput of the port was 9.2061 million tons. In 1994 the handling capacity for the whole port exceeded 10 million tons. Today, the harbour has maintained good momentum for sustained production and rapid growth. According to the plan, 51 deep-water berths, 41 medium-sized berths will be built to provide an annual handling capacity of nearly 70 million tons. It is estimated that by 2000, the 20 deep-water berths in Dongdu Harbour District will be linked up.

In recent years, construction of Phase II of Dongdu Harbour Project and Xiamen Harbour Passenger Station, the expansion of Gaoqi Harbour, Liuwudian Harbour and large-scale port technical transformation have brought about a new look to Xiamen Port, making it one of the most important ports along the Chinese coast.

Port Management

Xiamen Port is managed by the Xiamen Harbour Bureau, a multi-functional, comprehensive port enterprise engaged in both passenger and cargo transportation, both general, bulk cargo and container shipment as well as other services like stevedoring, warehousing, agency, tally, lightering, engineering, manufacturing and repair of harbour machinery and other harbour services.