This was revealed at a two-day seminar, which ended on Wednesday, on China's container shipping development strategy. The seminar was sponsored by the China Institute of Navigation and the China Shipowners' Association.

China now has more than 150 shipping companies dealing with container transport. They are equipped with more than 600 ships and 300,000 TEU (ton equivalent unit) containers.

There are some 70 berths in the country devoted to container business, with a combined annual handling capacity amounting to more than 12 million TEUs.

China's ports are now open to more than 140 sea routes with overseas counterparts. Shanghai and Shenzhen ports are ranked among the world's leading ports.

In 1998, the country's ports handled 13 million TEU containers, a 21 per cent rise on a yearly basis. As many as 280,000 TEU containers were shipped across the Taiwan Straits last year.

Industrial insiders said the country's fast economic growth has paved the way for the development of the shipping industry. The container sector owed its success partly to the growth of manufactured goods which account for 40 per cent of exports.

By the turn of the century, China is to build 100 deep-water berths of 10,000-dead weight ton and will add 200 million tons to its ports' handling capacity. The government will also further improve the laws on container shipping, increase the use of high technology in the sector and open the market wider for overseas container transporters.