SHANGHAI aims to surpass Singapore as the world's busiest container port next year, as China mainland's growing exports of toys, clothes and other goods serve to boost shipping demand.

"Shanghai port is likely to overtake Singapore next year," Wang Qingwei, board secretary of Shanghai International Port (Group) Co, the port's operator, told Bloomberg News yesterday. He declined to provide a forecast for 2008 traffic.

China mainland's busiest port has almost doubled its container traffic over the past three years, outpacing growth in Singapore, under a government drive to build the city into the shipping hub. Volume may rise 15 percent to 25 million boxes this year, said Wang.

Shanghai boosted its container traffic 26 percent in the first five months of the year to 10.3 million boxes, the local authority said in a statement on its Website yesterday.The port surpassed Hong Kong as the world's second-busiest container harbor in the first quarter.

Shanghai's US$16 billion Yangshan Deep-water Port will help expand the city's container handling capacity to at least 30 million boxes by 2010. The first phase of the port opened in December, 2005.