Shanghai, China's busiest container port, handled 24 percent more sea-cargo boxes in the first half, helped by the country's booming exports of toys, clothes and other goods. Shares of the port's operator surged.

Shanghai moved 12.5 million 20-foot boxes in the six months ended June 30, the local port authority said on its Website. Total cargo volume rose 21 percent to 174 million tons in the period, Bloomberg reported.

Shanghai has almost doubled its container traffic over the past three years under a government drive to build the city into the nation's shipping hub. The port may handle 15 percent more containers this year and it expects to surpass Singapore as the world's busiest container port in 2008.

Traffic at the port rose to a record 2.22 million boxes in June, according to the statement, which didn't give a year earlier figure. The full-year tally will probably be about 25 million boxes, Wang Qingwei, board secretary of Shanghai International Port (Group) Co, the port's operator, said in June.

Shanghai surpassed Hong Kong as the world's second-busiest container port in the first quarter.