Fengshan Port in Hai'an gives full play to its waterways transport capacity, to ensure the efficiency of key supplies going to Shanghai. [Photo/WeChat account: hafbwx]

Fengshan Port in Hai'an – a county-level city administered by Nantong in East China's Jiangsu province – is powering up its waterway transport capacity and opening up channels to Shanghai, Taicang and Nantong ports.

This is expected to make it easier for Hai'an companies to shift their freight method transportation from roads to waterways, in a bid to alleviate the poor road transport situation caused by the COVID-19 epidemic.

Many grain trading enterprises in Hai'an have switched their cargo transport way from roads to waterways since the outbreak of the current epidemic in Shanghai, having to date shipped over 2,000 metric tons of supplies to the metropolis.

To ensure the transport efficiency of key supplies, Fengshan Port recently actively got in contact with local businesses, systematically identified their needs and quickly determined the logistics status of customers.

At present, five grain firms in Hai'an have normalized their waterways transport. "We provide a subsidy of 200 yuan ($31.03) per container for local companies and supply them with one-stop, convenient and efficient logistics services," said Lyu Bin, general manager of Jiangsu Hai'an Fengshan Port Co Ltd.

Each container ship must report crew members, their ID numbers, digital travel records and health codes 24 hours ahead of schedule. After the ship berths, anti-epidemic personnel wearing protective clothes conduct an all-round disinfection of the ship.

In the current year, the container throughput at Fengshan Port has topped 4,000 TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent units), a year-on-year increase of 20 percent. The bulk cargo throughput has exceeded 40,000 tons, up nearly 50 percent over the same period last year.