Qingdao (China)

Qingdao (Tsingtao) is a major Yellow Sea port located on Shantung Peninsula's south coast (northeastern China), at Kiaochow Bay's entrance. The seaport features one of China's most beautiful natural harbours. Qingdao is also a major industrial city , Shandong province's largest city and China's 19th largest by population (around 9,05 million, metro around 6,2 million).

World's longest sea bridge - Jiaozhou Bay Bridge (aka Qingdao Haiwan Bridge) was opened in 2011. It has length 41,6 km (26 mi) and cost to build USD 1,5 billion (GBP 900 million). The seabridge connects central Qingdao City with its Huangdao District (aka Yellow Island) going over Jiaozhou Bay.

This was a small fishing village until early-20th-century when German military forces landed at the port. Port's strategic location led to large-scale maritime trade. Orient Ferry (Qingdao to Shimonoseki ferries) link Qingdao with Shimonoseki Japan. There are also two ferry lines connecting Qingdao with South Korea (Incheon and Gunsan).

Port Qingdao

Port Qingdao (locode CNTAO) is hosts one of the world's busiest cargo ports. It is connected with regularly scheduled containership lines with around 450 ports in 130 different countries.

Port's annual cargo shipping capacity for the first time exceeded 100 million tons in 2003. The number of TEUs (containers) then reached 3,41 million. By 2011, the port was ranked the world's 6th busiest by total cargo volume (372 million tons). In terms of TEU volumes, the port is ranked the world's 8th largest.

The port consists of 4x very large areas - Dagang, Qianwan, Dongjiakou, and Huangdong (serving oil tankers). Port's largest container terminals are Qingdao Qianwan and Qingdao Cosport, The Port has a separate terminal serving bulk carriers (iron ore).

On June 13, 2018, the Genting Hong Kong-owned company Star Cruises celebrated the maiden voyage of SuperStar Aquarius (1993-built) homeported here. The ship's Qingdao roundtrip itineraries visited ports in Japan (Beppu, Fukuoka, Nagasaki, Sasebo). In November 2018, the fleetmate SuperStar Virgo also started its homeporting program from Qingdao with 4-night roundtrips to Japan (Kagoshima, Fukuoka, Nagasaki).

In 2018, the cruise port handled 88 ship calls (drop from 95 in 2017). Port's largest cruise line customers are Costa (ships Fortuna, neoRomantica), Star Cruises (SuperStar Virgo, SuperStar Aquarius), also the smaller Chinese Taishan (ex Costa Voyager) and Glory Sea. Also in 2018, a new Chinese brand (Elite Cruises) announced homeport Qingdao deployment.

Since January 2019, to promote local cruise ship tourism, Qingdao's municipal government provides incentive subsidies of up to Yuan 3 million (approx USD 435,000) per ship. The subsidies are provided to cruise companies that include Qingdao City as call port in their itineraries, also to travel agencies (organizing sightseeing city tours) and ticket- and travel agents operating homeport cruises on rented or chartered vessels. Agencies with 5000+ bookings annually are entitled to Yuan 200 (approx USD 29) subsidy per passenger.

On March 28, 2020, was held the official ground-breaking ceremony of "Qingdao International Cruise Terminal Area". The new facility is in Port Qingdao's old zone (dating back to 1892), featuring 9 km (5,6 mi) coastlines and land area approx 4,2 km2 (1,7 mi2). The construction site covers 5,3 km2 (2,05 mi2). The new cruise port is also adjacent to downtown and has berthing capacity to handle the world's largest passenger liners (with GT 220,000 tons). In this major project (budgeted CNY 31,3+ billion / ~USD 4,41B / ~EUR 4,04B) are grouped a total of 15 projects related to cruise shipping, trade, finance, tourism.

Since August 2019, Port Qingdao is managed by the state-owned company Shandong Port Group, which also manages Port Yantai, Port Rizhao, and Port Bohai Bay.

Qingdao cruise terminal