¡¡¡¡Editor's note: A direct link across the Taiwan Strait has been common aspiration shared by the Chinese people, and for sure once it is eventually realised, port and shipping enterprises across the Strait will be provided a full scope for displaying their versatile talents.
¡¡¡¡On March 28th, Xiamen Port welcomed the 25th year of its independent operation. Undertaking a significant role for development along the west of Taiwan Strait, Xiamen Port is flat-out pursuing its ambitious aims.

¡¡¡¡Sitting among a diverse group of ports across the Taiwan Strait, Xiamen Port is fairly distinctive. Its business scope covers Wenzhou in Zhejiang to the north, Shantou in Guangdong to the south; and inland areas of Fujian, the southern part of Jiangxi, and the southern part of Hunan in the hinterland. It is the primary port in cross-strait exchanges.

¡¡¡¡Vigorously expanding the market via diversified channels

¡¡¡¡As an important leading hub port on the west bank of the Strait, any advance in Xiamen Port is closely associated with the progress of the Western Bank Economic Zone, and both have been in rapid development in recent years.
¡¡¡¡Expanding into the western hinterland using ocean-railway multimodal transport.
¡¡¡¡Begun in July 2004, ocean-railway multimodal transport via Xiamen Port has gradually developed into a key area for its overall expansion. Thanks to this area, Xiamen Port is seeing its imported bulks throughput steadily increase. As for the business network layout, more outlets such as Shaowu, Yingtan, Xinyu, Liling and Yongzhou are already opened.
¡¡¡¡With domestic coastal container handling as the core, expansion into coastal hinterland to absorb more exported container transport through Xiamen Port.
¡¡¡¡More supports is now being given to domestic container transport routes from Fuzhou and Shantou separately to Xiamen. Domestic container trade handled by these two routes has altogether mounted to 50,000 TEU in 2007 and, with the addition of foreign trade, they achieved 389,000 TEU, a y-o-y 24.3% increase.
¡¡¡¡Focusing on international container transit, promoting the sea hinterland.
¡¡¡¡Xiamen Port is enhancing ties with international large and medium-sized shipping agents, thereby strengthening its ability in domestic as well as overseas marketing so as to build up strategic alliances between port and shipping; secondly in cooperation with Maersk in its strategy to set Xiamen Port as a key transfer hub, Xiamen Port has implemented a bonded policy in Songyu Port Area; it has also worked out simple but effective supervision over transfers that reduce costs, improve efficiency and can expand the scale of international container transit.
¡¡¡¡Based on existing terminal resources, expand surrounding hinterland as well as the portside professional market.
¡¡¡¡With its existing logistics base, Xiamen Port is gradually establishing a strategic storage and distribution system, expanding the operations area of its bonded logistics parks, introducing international logistics enterprises for various services including logistics distribution, bonded processing as well as port trade. In addition, the port function, the logistics park and the trade business are integrated, with the latter two being used as the dynamo to stimulate central terminal services. To nurture a portside professional services sector, Xiamen Port is cultivating its bulk sourcing, developing distribution centres for large-scale resources and also consolidating a supply base for the terminal.

¡¡¡¡Adding investment, improving port hardware

¡¡¡¡In order to speed up the pace of development, Xiamen Port is planning to add investment onto hardware construction towards five key indicators:
¡¡¡¡- Construction begun on the 100,000-ton 1st to 3rd berths in Songyu Terminal One, which is to accommodate the world's largest container carrier - "Emma ? Maersk".
¡¡¡¡- Completion and entry into operation of the 7th Haicang berth for berthing of 150,000-ton large bulk carriers.
¡¡¡¡- Investment of RMB 350 million into the Xiamen International Cruise Centre for 150,000-ton cruise berthing, which is 463 metres long, 12.4 metres in water depth, with an annual handling capacity of 1.5 million passenger-trips.
¡¡¡¡- Completion of a 50,000-dwt petrochemical terminal to start liquid chemical transportation, thus opening a new scope for development for Xiamen Port.
¡¡¡¡- Construction begun on the large-scale bulk groceries terminal in China Merchants Zhangzhou Development Zone 4th Section. This project receives joint investment by China Merchants Group and Xiamen Port Holdings Group, with a total planned capital input exceeding RMB 10 billion, 30% of which is for this initial phase. By 2011, three 100,000 to 250,000-ton deep-water berths are expected to have been completed.

¡¡¡¡Constantly enhancing competitiveness

¡¡¡¡Becoming adept in the capital market, and promoting joint venture cooperation.
¡¡¡¡On Dec. 19th, 2005, Xiamen International Port Co., Ltd. was successfully listed in Hong Kong, becoming China's first listed company overseas and with full entitlement to port stocks alone. It also became the first listed state-owned enterprise in Xiamen City. Meanwhile, Xiamen Port is also actively carrying out joint venture cooperation to leverage development. On one side, it is focussed on promoting joint ventures with Maersk on the 1st Phase of Songyu Port Area, with a foreign investment of RMB 840 million; on the other hand, it has joined hands with HWL in construction on the Haicang Port Berth One, with investment from Hong Kong mounting to US$ 350 million.
¡¡¡¡Expaningd internal strength, striving for a port operator based on resource allocation.
¡¡¡¡Close attention will be placed on internal mechanisms for upgrading port function and improving port services.
¡¡¡¡Xiamen Port has fulfilled the following:Having emphasised three logistics chains between foreign and domestic trade container transport as well as groceries shipping, the integration is to grow into a strategic storage and distribution system based on the existing port logistics operations; It has promoted the logistics distribution, bonded processing, port trade and other business, nurturing the portside services sector; It has explored a marketing system with producers, traders, terminal owners as well as banks working together as a port resources distribution centre; It has innovated ways of operating, setting up a port industry chain coordinating terminal handling, agents, warehousing, logistics and distribution, and port trade.
¡¡¡¡In this series of measures, Xiamen Port has progressivel enhanced its overall competitiveness.
¡¡¡¡As the central authorities and Fujian Province have planned, by 2010, Xiamen Port will develop into a regional power in the west Pacific coast as well as a world class container hub to handle more than 100 million tons of general goods and over 10 million TEU annually.