The coast of the Yellow Sea is vast. In the port areas of Yancheng Port, huge bridge cranes stand tall, container liners are endless, and there is a busy atmosphere everywhere.

The sea contains thousands of boats, and the port determines the world. Since its five years since its establishment, as a hard core force to "build Yancheng's maritime channel to the world", Yancheng Port Group "clenched its fingers into a fist" and completed the transformation from "a group of ports" to "port groups". Through the iterative upgrade of infrastructure, the leapfrog improvement of operating strength, and the continuous breakthrough of technological empowerment, Yancheng Port's core port competitiveness, aggregation support, and radiation and driving force are increasing day by day, and a brilliant answer has been delivered.

Reform and move towards a hub-strong port

Reform is a key move to bid farewell to the history of "a large port but no strong port" in Yancheng's 582-kilometer coastline. Before the reform, the ports in Yancheng had long had problems such as homogeneous development and disorderly competition. Only by integrating can the maximization of advantageous resources be achieved.

On June 16, 2020, Jiangsu Yancheng Port Holding Group Co., Ltd. was established, marking the coordinated development of the city's "one port and four districts" and the inland river port area, and officially entering a new stage of integrated development of river and sea transport.

The integrated Yancheng Port not only completely solved the chronic problems of homogeneous development, disorderly competition, and duplicate construction among various ports in the past, but also significantly leaped its strength in stabilizing the supply of goods, opening up routes, and participating in market competition. The industry's attractiveness, influence and voice are increasing day by day, becoming an important node hub port along the Huaihe River Ecological Economic Belt and the "Belt and Road" ecological economic Circle around the Yellow Sea.

Infrastructure is the core "hardware" support for the leap in port energy levels. In Xiangshui Port Modern Industrial Park, the newly put into use large warehouses echo the port area gantry cranes, forming a modern logistics matrix. With the full operation of the industrial park, the storage area of ​​Xiangshui Port District will be expanded to 333,000 square meters, and the warehousing capacity will be increased by more than 10 times. It is estimated that the annual cargo turnover can reach 4 million tons.

This is just a microcosm of the upgrading of infrastructure construction in Yancheng Port. Over the past five years, Yancheng Port has successively completed the construction of a number of major projects, including Guanhekou's 50,000-ton waterway, Xiangshui Port District Heavy Parts Terminal, Sheyang Port District 35,000-ton waterway, Dafeng Port District Comprehensive Warehouse and Logistics, and Binhai Port District Logistics Park Site, achieving full coverage of navigation in the "one port, four districts" of waterways above 10,000-ton waterways.

Since its establishment, Yancheng Port's energy level improvement trend has continued to be strong. In its first year of official operation, it has been ranked among the 100 million tons of ports in the country. The Dafeng Port, Sheyang Port, Binhai Port and Xiangshui Port Area of ​​Yancheng Port have all been approved as national first-class open ports, with 95 productive terminal berths, including 26 berths above 10,000 tons, with an annual comprehensive pass capacity of 124 million tons. The Dafeng Port Area in the port entry channel is 100,000 tons, the Binhai Port Area and Xiangshui Port Area are 50,000 tons, the Sheyang Port Area is 35,000 tons, and the Binhai Port Area is 100,000 tons and the Sheyang Port Area is 50,000 tons. The layout of inland ports is also full of highlights, with 8 port areas including the city, Funing, Jianhu, and Dongtai. There are 549 productive berths and an annual comprehensive pass capacity of 118 million tons.

Today, Yancheng Port is becoming an important strategic fulcrum for the Yangtze River Delta port group to connect the north and south and radiate inland with the open energy level of the national first-class port and the throughput strength of a 100 million-ton port.

Breakthrough, speed of development

Recently, in the Yancheng Port Binhai Port District, the "Yancheng Port Dawn" freighter carried 2,193 cars from well-known brands such as Dongfeng, Volkswagen, Changan, BYD, Toyota, Chery, etc., and set off for the Port of Aqaba, Jordan. This is a record high in the single-time automobile export volume of Binhai Port Area, and it is also a vivid footnote to the breakthrough development of Yancheng Port port and shipping operations.

Five years ago, except for the Dafeng Port District, the four seaports in Yancheng Port maintained a cargo throughput of 30 million tons and the occasional sporadic freight in Sheyang Port District, other port areas were in the dilemma of "bathing the sun on the terminal" for many years.

After five years of hard work, Yancheng Port has worked hard to answer the "development answer sheet". From the growth rate of cargo throughput and container volume, ranking first and second in coastal ports in the country, to the total cargo throughput entering the top 20 ports in the country, port operations have achieved breakthrough progress; the average annual growth of cargo throughput by 26.8%, 5 times the national average.

All ports have closely followed the theme deployment arrangements of operating and developing aviation, establishing projects, improving quality and efficiency, and developed in a staggered manner, from "one fight" to "full blossoming". All four ports have been officially opened to the outside world, and the operating efficiency of each inland port area has continued to rise, showing a vigorous trend of progressing side by side.

The single-ship loading in Dafeng Port District has set records, and the production and operation of Xiangshui Port District, Binhai Port District and Sheyang Port District has broken through from zero to doubling year by year... All port areas of Yancheng Port have achieved a new speed of high-quality development, and the cargo throughput has achieved the goal of quadrupled the "14th Five-Year Plan" one year ahead of schedule. Carry out large-scale equipment loading and unloading operations such as wind power blades over 120 meters, firmly ranked among the three basic ports for wind power import and export in the country, and completed a total of more than 60,000 roll-ro-operated vehicles in Kia and Chery.

Yancheng Port actively integrates into the city's "5 2" strategic emerging industries, resolutely shoulders the responsibility of ensuring supply of "energy in the north, grain in the south, and wind power in the middle", promotes the construction of Jiangsu Huanghai (Dafeng Port) Grain Industry Park, and completes a total grain throughput of 9.1188 million tons in 2024; integrates into the city's wind power industry chain, builds Yancheng Port wind power operation and maintenance base, Hengtong submarine cable terminal and other projects, and completes a total wind power equipment throughput of 27.1176 million tons in 2024.

In terms of expanding the circle and empowering, the "Huaihe Strategy" has achieved new breakthroughs. Yancheng Port adheres to the "customer-centered" and has carried out five market development activities including "40-day training", "50-day competition", "Hundred Regiments War in the New Era", "North-Term Battle to the Market", and "Yancheng Port Iron Army Huaihai Campaign". It has visited more than 20,000 enterprises and attracted more than 3,000 new customers, forming an increase of 33.926 million tons of "land to water" and an increase of 75,000 "dispersed to gather" to 75,000 TEU, providing solid support for building a gateway port in the Huaihe River Basin.

Innovation, ignite the kinetic energy engine

While consolidating the "hard foundation", Yancheng Port has continued to promote the deep integration of new generation information technologies such as 5G and digital twins with port production over the past five years, making dock operations smarter, more efficient and safer.

At the Dafeng Port Container Terminal Automation Control Center, staff remotely operate 4 automated track cranes to accurately complete box grabbing and boxing operations. In the 400-acre yard, no one was on duty except the driver of the cab.

This is the first 5G automated container yard on the coast of the province, and it is also the first yard in a port in the country to obtain international zero carbon certification. The annual container turnover of the yard can reach 1 million TEU, and the construction of automated unmanned track cranes, intelligent integrated TOS systems, digital twins and other systems can realize intelligent management of unmanned operations, unmanned track cranes, unmanned gates, unmanned container cargo, unmanned monitoring of distribution rooms, and other intelligent management.

Moving towards "intelligence" and embracing new quality productivity, Yancheng Port is engraving technological innovation into its development genes. The Science and Technology Group has completed the established goals of a national high-tech enterprise one year ahead of schedule, obtained a number of patents for utility model inventions, and the construction of the "Five New Demonstration Ports" is rushing. Smart technologies such as the smart spray system in Sheyang Port District, the unmanned ground bench in Binhai Port District and the smart waterway in Xiangshui Port District are promoted and applied; the digital infrastructure such as the group's large intranet is improved, and integrated container and bulk grocery production and operation platforms are put into use, and the comprehensive operating efficiency is increased by more than 5%.

Innovation in the front line, innovation in all employees. Since 2021, Yancheng Port Group has issued a call to carry out "five small" innovation activities such as small innovations, small inventions, small transformations, small designs, and small suggestions. After more than four years of practical promotion, as of 2024, a total of 67 innovative projects such as "bulk conveyor line material return solutions" have been implemented, achieving cost reduction and efficiency increase of 1.54 million yuan, and initially forming an innovative ecosystem of "everyone dares to innovate first".

What is more worth noting is that these "microinnovations" are gathering into the "qualitative change" force of high-quality development: the new soft-based processing process has achieved a reduction in processing construction period and cost by more than 20%; the intelligent research and application of hoppers has achieved a 20% increase in loading efficiency; the windproof capacity of large-scale shore equipment, online equipment monitoring, AI video monitoring and other systems have effectively improved the equipment operation and safety production control capabilities... Yancheng Port is moving forward firmly along the road of scientific and technological innovation.

After five years of hard work, Yancheng Port has moved from "physical integration" to "chemical reaction" and from a 100 million tons port to a hub-strong port. When the 100,000-ton giant ship berths in Dafeng Port District and when the wind power blades are sent from Sheyang Port District to the world, this young port group is building a maritime channel for Yancheng to go to the world with the mind of "the sea is surrounded by thousands of boats", setting up new coordinates for the high-quality development of coastal areas.