Xinhua News Agency, Shanghai, December 14 (Reporter Wu Yu) Recently, the first shield machine required for the Jakarta Bandung high-speed railway project in Indonesia was launched for export from the Zhanghuabang wharf on the bank of the Huangpu River in Shanghai. This behemoth with a diameter of more than 13 meters, a length of more than 100 meters, and a total weight of more than 2600 tons was disassembled into more than 100 parts, with a total value of 170 million yuan. Since this year, Shanghai Wusong Customs has provided fast customs clearance services for the export goods of the "Belt and Road" with a total weight of nearly 1 million tons and a total value of nearly 70 billion yuan, and the export market involves more than 30 countries and regions.
Shanghai Wusong Customs, established in 1986, was one of the customs with the largest import and export volume of foreign trade goods in China around the 1990s. The wharves under its supervision, such as Zhanghuabang and Jungong Road, which are located on the bank of the Huangpu River, are only a few kilometers away from the Yangtze River Estuary and have been the only maritime terminals in Shanghai for a long time. Wusongkou International Cruise Port, also under its jurisdiction, is the first cruise home port in Asia and the fourth cruise home port in the world.
"From the sea terminal to the international cruise port, Wusong Customs has witnessed China's opening up and changes in the past 40 years," said Zhu Ling, head of the First Inspection Section of Wusong Customs.
Zhu Ling joined Shanghai Customs in 1993. She recalled that before the opening of the Waigaoqiao Port in Pudong in 2001, several wharves on the Huangpu River had "exclusive scenery", and cargo ships and containers from all directions gathered here to form a water city. Wusong Customs was often busy with inspection and release business until 2:30 a.m.
In the new century, with the completion and operation of Waigaoqiao Port at the mouth of the Yangtze River and Yangshan Port extending into the East China Sea, the container business of Shanghai Port has entered the marine era from the river era. In 2010, it surpassed Singapore, becoming the world's largest container port for eight consecutive years, and in 2017, it became the world's first port with an annual container throughput exceeding 40 million TEUs. Although Wusong Customs in this period was far away from Waigaoqiao and Yangshan in the field of container freight, with the rapid rise of Wusongkou International Cruise Port, it took the lead in shifting its service focus from goods to passengers at Shanghai Port, thereby boosting the transformation and upgrading of local economy.
According to Zhu Ling, in 2012, Wusong Customs set up a travel inspection department for the cruise business, with only 6 people initially. Today, the travel inspection has been divided into two sections, with more than 20 people working in turn to cope with the explosive growth of cruise business.
In 2017, Wusongkou International Cruise Port received 466 cruise ships in total, receiving 2.92 million inbound and outbound passengers, accounting for more than 40% of the national cruise business, and driving China to become the largest cruise passenger market in Asia and the second largest in the world.
As one of the earliest "pioneers" in the cruise business in Shanghai, Zhu Ling and his colleagues actively planned a convenient and safe cruise customs clearance model to promote the ship supply business and the cruise manufacturing industry to take root, so as to transform cruise from a "passing economy" to a "landing economy".
According to the statistics of Wusong Customs, in the first 11 months of this year, nearly 1800 tons of various ship supply products were exported through Wusongkou International Cruise Port, with a value of more than 64 million yuan. The quantity and amount of the ship supply products were roughly the same as those imported in the same period, indicating that the ship supply industry with high added value and strong industrial driving ability is becoming an emerging industry in Shanghai and surrounding areas.
While the cruise industry is booming, the once busy Huangpu River Maritime Terminal is not silent. In particular, Zhu Ling is proud that over the past five years, the old wharves with the advantages of general cargo transportation, such as Zhang Huabang and Jungong Road, have regained their youth. In recent years, Wusong Customs has successively supervised a large number of large-scale equipment representing China's manufacturing level, such as metro vehicles, oil and gas pipelines, coal and gas power plant equipment exported to Pakistan, Ethiopia, Jordan and other countries.
"From the river to the sea, from goods to people, from ordinary containers to" the Belt and Road "large equipment, behind these opening changes, is not only a symbol of the changes in Shanghai Port, but also a microcosm of China's sustained and rapid development and increasing integration into the world economy, from which Chinese people and the people of the world benefit," said Zhu Ling.
