CHINA'S State Council has given the go-ahead to set up the country's fourth bonded port in Hainan Province, Xinhua news agency reported yesterday.
The Yangpu Bonded Harbor Area covering an area of 9.21 square kilometers in Yangpu Economic Development Zone, will be built in three phases, the report said.
Fixed-asset investments will reach 50 billion yuan (US$6.66 billion) in the port by 2012 and the annual industrial output will hit 100 billion yuan with annual freight handling capacity reaching 70 million tons, the report said.
Jiang Sixian, vice governor of the province, said yesterday the port will be transformed into a logistics center for oil, natural gas, chemical materials and paper pulp, as well as being a key processing base for chemical products in the country.
The port can house 80 berths, each of which will handle 10,000 to 300,000 tons of goods, along its 50-kilometer-long coastline, Jiang said.
The port will help accelerate the economic development in Hainan, Jiang said.
China now has three bonded ports in Shanghai, Tianjin and Dalian, and the Hainan port will be the first one in south China.
Yangpu Economic Development Zone is inside the 150-square-kilometer Yangpu Peninsula on the northwestern coast of Hainan and covers an area of 30 square kilometers. The zone is about 140 kilometers from Haikou, capital of Hainan.