(Xinhua)
Updated: 2007-10-09 10:42

SHENYANG -- Port developers in Northeast China have raked in more than 4 billion yuan (US$533 million) from China's bullish stock market for infrastructure construction in the country's old industrial base.

With expansion of port facilities and handling capacity, Yingkou Port in Liaoning Province has ascended to the second largest in the northeast region and the 10th largest in the country with an annual throughput exceeding 100 million tons, said Gao Baoyu, president of the Yingkou Port Group Corp.

China is striving to rejuvenate its old industrial base in the northeast region, a 1.45-million-square-km area comprising the provinces of Liaoning, Jilin, Heilongjiang and the eastern part of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. Liaoning has the region's only sea outlet with major deep-water ports of Dalian, Yingkou, Dandong and Jinzhou.

Yingkou is second only to Dalian, host city of Summer Davos this year, in Northeast China in terms of cargo transport. The Yingkou port has accumulated some 1.4 billion yuan (US$186 million) since its debut on the Shanghai Stock Exchange in 2002. While, the listing of Liaoning's biggest port of Dalian in the Hong Kong bourse in 2006 raised 2.5 billion yuan (US$333 million).

The last three years have seen dramatic economic growth in the Northeast China region, which has boosted the ports' throughput, mainly consisting of shipments of ore, fertilizers, steel and coal exports. Liaoning has projected itself as a shipment center in northeast Asian region with combined throughput exceeding 500 million tons by 2010 from 350 million tons in 2006.

Port investment in Liaoning topped 10.8 billion yuan (US$1.4 billion) last year. By the end of 2006, Liaoning had 310 berths, 124 of which allow docking of 10,000 dwt (dead weight tonne) ships.