China's ports last month set their new historical record of monthly freight traffic, having handled 1.47 billion tonnes of cargo, an increase of 9.0% percent on May 2022 and an increase of 32 million tonnes. compared to the previous historic peak marked in March 2023. The new record was achieved thanks to the 938.9 million tonnes of cargo (+ 8.8%) handled by seaports, volume never reached before, while domestic ports last month handled 528.5 million tonnes of cargo. loads, volume that represents the new record for the month of May (the absolute record was obtained in June 2021) and a 9.4% percent hike on May 2022.

Last month the new historical record of goods from and for overseas handling by Chinese ports amounted to 435.1 million tonnes (+ 10.1%), a peak that was possible thanks to the historical record of international goods. handled by seaports alone attested to 389.2 million tonnes (+ 10.8%), while inland ports handled 45.9 million tonnes (+ 4.2%).

As of May 2023, the largest volume of traffic was handled by the port of Ningbo-Zhoushan with 116.9 million tonnes (+ 1.3%) followed by Tangshan ports with 73.2 million tonnes (+ 19.9%), Shanghai with 64.8 million tonnes (+ 38.4%), Qingdao with 60.7 million tonnes (+ 6.9%), Guangzhou with 55.7 million tonnes (+ 6.0%) and Rizhao with 50.3 million tonnes (+ 6.4%).

In May 2023 Chinese ports also established their new historical record of container traffic that resulted in more than 26.6 million teu, with a 4.8% progression on May 2022 and an increase of 155mila teu compared to the previous one record of January 2023. Last month alone seaports handled 23.3 million teu (+ 4.5%), as it is only less than the absolute record scored in January 2023, while inland ports reached a new historical record with nearly 3.4 million teu (+ 6.3%), higher than the previous record of 3.3 million teu last April.

In May 2023, the largest volume of containerized goods was handled by the port of Shanghai with 4.1 million teu (+ 20.6%) followed by the ports of Ningbo-Zhoushan with 3.1 million teu (-6.5%), Shenzhen with 2.5 million teu (-7.5%), Qingdao with 2.4 million teu (+ 10.9%), Guangzhou with 2.2 million teu (+ 8.9%) and Tianjin with 2.1 million teu (+ 6.4%).

In the first five months of this year, the total freight traffic in Chinese ports was 6.74 billion tonnes, up 7.9% percent on the corresponding period of 2022, of which 4.40 billion tonnes of cargo handled by seaports (+ 7.2%) and 2.34 billion from inland ports (+ 9.2%). The only total flow of international goods amounted to 2.04 billion tonnes (+ 8.5%), of which 1.83 billion tonnes were passed through seaports (+ 8.4%) and 209.5 million tonnes through inland ports (+ 10.0%).

In the January-May period of 2023, container traffic amounted to 122.1 million teu (+ 4.8%), including 107.2 million teu in seaports (+ 4.1%) and 14.9 million teu in inland ports (+ 9.7%).