A trade war with the US hasn’t stopped China’s biggest ports from setting records for container handling in 2025 – all with a month to go.
The country’s two leading port complexes, Shanghai Port and Ningbo-Zhoushan Port, set annual volume records after just 11 months, surpassing the total amount of 90 million in 20-foot equivalent units (TEU).
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The Port of Shanghai handled its 50 million TEU on Nov. 26, 26 days earlier than in 2024, according to a statement from the gateway. With this milestone, the port ranks first in terms of global container throughput for the 16th consecutive year. In 2024, the Chinese port handled more than 51.5 million TEUs, far exceeding the 41.1 million TEUs that passed through the second busiest seaport, the Port of Singapore.
The Port of Shanghai did not disclose exact figures for November and did not give a projection for December or the full year. The port says container throughput topped 46 million TEUs in the first 10 months of the year, a 6.5 percent increase over 2024 figures. That would put November’s estimated container movement in the 4 million TEU range.
In a statement, port operator Shanghai International Port Group, Ltd. attributed the growth to “moving beyond the automation of autonomous equipment” to a new stage of “intelligent collaboration” across the wider port ecosystem.
“With the deep application of cutting-edge technologies (eg F5G, digital twins and high-precision positioning), remote operation, unmanned transportation and intelligent programming have become routine, marking a fundamental shift from ‘human-controlled’ to ‘AI-controlled’ practice,” the operator said in a statement. “This intelligent transformation, powered by local technologies, not only brings advances in terminal efficiency, but also showcases China’s fully autonomous and reliable port technology capabilities to the rest of the world.”
This year, the Port of Shanghai added 12 new international routes, covering 50 major ports around the world, while increasing transshipment efficiency by 22 percent.
For Ningbo-Zhoushan Port, 2025 was also a landmark year, with the seaport surpassing 40 million for the first time on Tuesday.
According to the port’s owner, Zhejiang Seaport Group, Ningbo-Zhoushan Port’s operations have accelerated from 30 million TEUs annually in just four years.
“The port started relatively late in container operations, but has developed very quickly,” Tao Chengbo, chairman of Zhejiang Seaport Group, said in the statement.
For November, container throughput rose nearly 11% to 4.5 million TEUs from the month a year ago.
Both ports are deepening their collaboration with each other amid external trade tensions. The ports of Shanghai and Ningbo-Zhoushan generated 18 percent year-on-year growth in the annual throughput of goods passing between both ports, according to a report by Hong Kong-based publication Bastille Post Global.
The high growth in Shanghai and Ningbo-Zhoushan comes amid expectations of a monthly recovery in China’s exports. Output shipments in November were expected to have risen 3.8 percent in value from a year earlier, according to the median forecast of 20 economists in a Reuters poll.
This follows a surprising 1.1% drop in exports for October, as China coped not only with its usual double-digit year-on-year declines in US-bound goods, but also weakening strength from other partners such as the EU, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and Africa, among others.
As for imports entering China, a Reuters poll forecast incoming goods would rise 2.8 percent, up from a meager 1 percent gain from last year.
With China expected to release official customs data in the coming days, eyes are also on freight tariffs that have risen on goods leaving the country in the past week.
According to data from Drewry’s World Container Index (WCI), spot shipping rates rose 7% to $1,927 per 40-foot container after three weeks of declines, mainly due to rate increases on the trans-Pacific and Asia-Europe trade routes.
Spot rates from Shanghai to Los Angeles rose 8% to $2,256 per container, while those to New York rose 6% to $2,895 on average. And in Europe, spot rates for vessels sailing to Genoa rose 15% to $2,648 per box, while rates from Shanghai to Rotterdam rose 4% to $2,241.
“Some carriers have adopted a weekly strategy for GRI. Instead of announcing large increases that tend to erode quickly, carriers are now introducing smaller, more frequent increases to maintain steady upward pressure on spot rates,” Drewry said in an update Thursday, calling GRI’s weekly strategy for U.S. cargo “effective.” The container shipping consultancy expects stable rates in the coming week.
