CHINA's port throughput has increased to 7.66 billion tonnes from 10 million tonnes when the nation was founded in 1949, while its mega ports grew to 20 from 16 in 2008, China's port cargo volume has ranked No 1 worldwide for seven years in a row, said a statement from China's Transport Ministry.

The ministry said that China's annual port capacity growth reaches 500 million tonnes, equivalent to Shanghai's port, reported Xinhua. Container throughput of ports in China grows at a speed of 30 per cent annually in the past 10 years.

Eight Chinese ports are in the world's top 20, and half of the world's top 10 are from China such as Shanghai (first place), Shenzhen (fourth place), Guangzhou (seventh place), Ningpo-Zhoushan (eighth place) and Qingdao (10th place).

Port efficiency and turnaround times have been greatly improved. Vessels' average tonnage when arriving at port is now twice as much as before, but vessel's time for staying at port is one tenth as long as it was in the mid-1980s and the cost of shipping one tonne of cargo is 20 per cent lower than it was 30 years ago.