(Yicai Global) April 7 -- Major coastal ports in China including Ningbo Zhoushan, Shanghai Yangshan and Xiamen have seamlessly resumed operations, with many back to their daily levels before the Covid-19 epidemic erupted, port authorities told Yicai Global yesterday.

At Zhoushan, an island south of Shanghai in Zhejiang province, throughput had returned to its normal daily level as of the end of March, its authority said. The mainland Beilun Facility under the port authority completed a total of 71,838 twenty-foot equivalent units of sea-rail combined transport from Feb. 21 to March 21 in an over 28 percent rise over the same time last year. It completed 3,222 TEUs of sea-rail combined cargoes on March 21, hitting a record high for its daily operating volume, the authority said.

Ningbo Zhoushan is one of China's main hub ports. It is an important offshore container facility for the Chinese mainland and its largest iron ore and crude oil transit base. It completed a cargo throughput in excess of 1 billion tons last year to rank first in the world for 11 straight years, and a yearly throughput of 27.535 million TEUs, placing it third in the world for two years in a row.

Container throughput soared last month at Shanghai Yangshan, which is the world's busiest poor, according to the website of the city's Pudong New Area, and the Fully-automated complex has basically returned to normal levels. More than 1.2 million TEUs have loaded and unloaded at the gargantuan island facility whose average daily throughput has recovered from 32,000 TEUs to about 52,000, Shanghai International Port Group told Yicai Global.

The 154 international trunk container ships docked at Yangshan Port from March 12 to 25 included a massive one bearing more than 10,000 standard containers. This is equivalent to an average of 22 ships entering and leaving its harbor every day, up about 34.5 percent from the same time in February and more than 98 percent on the same period last year, data from the China Maritime Safety Administration show.

The world's largest container ship the MSC Nela docked at Songyu Terminal of Xiamen Port on March 31. This was the third new-generation jumbo container ship that Xiamen Port has accommodated since mid-March. Three 200,000-ton container ships have brought a total throughput of more than 10,000 TEUs to its wharfs, all of which were shipped to One Belt One Road countries, according to Xiamen Port Holding Group.

Editor: Ben Armour