Earlier this month, as construction vessels and heavy machinery roared into action, full-scale construction officially began on Phase V of Guangzhou Port's Nansha Port Area — a national key project. Designed for an annual container throughput of 6.7 million TEUs, the project will lift Nansha's total handling capacity to 35 million TEUs on completion, placing it among the world's leading single port areas. The expansion will further strengthen Guangzhou's standing as an international shipping hub and lend powerful port-side momentum to the city's drive to become a global maritime center city, to the province's effort to build a modern integrated transport system, and to the development of a high-level gateway for opening up.

 

Huang Bo, Party Secretary and Chairman of Guangzhou Port Group, noted that Nansha's annual container throughput has surpassed 22 million TEUs across more than 200 container liner services, with foreign-trade boxes now accounting for over 60% — marking a profound shift from China's largest domestic-trade port to a "dual-circulation" hub. Together with the Nansha International Multi-purpose Terminal already under construction, today's Phase V groundbreaking will add 11 million TEUs of handling capacity, bringing Nansha's total to 35 million TEUs. The new capacity will significantly enhance the port's ability to berth ultra-large vessels and serve deep-sea trunk routes, giving fresh impetus to Nansha's high-level opening up and to Guangzhou's ambitions as an international shipping hub.

 

Zhang Bingnan, Deputy Party Secretary and General Manager of China Communications Construction Company Ltd. (CCCC), said the “Jun Guang” — Asia's largest and the world's most advanced trailing suction hopper dredger, designed, developed and built entirely in China — represents another major milestone for domestically built national vessels and signals that China's capacity to independently develop and manufacture large, high-end dredging equipment now ranks among the world's best. CCCC, he added, will deliver Phase V to the highest standards as a quality, green and integrity project, contributing further to Guangdong's high-quality economic and social development.

 

Xu Hongyu, Party Leadership Group Member and Deputy Director of the Guangzhou Port Authority, said ports are regarded as core strategic resource for urban growth and national strategy. The Authority oversees the full chain of port planning, construction, operations and shipping services, anchoring its work in the development of an international shipping hub, advancing the interconnection and coordinated development of the world-class port cluster in the Guangdong–Hong Kong–Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA), and providing a solid port and shipping foundation for Guangzhou's high-level opening-up gateway. As a national strategic project, Phase V will continue to benefit from the Authority's coordination, regulatory oversight and resource support to ensure high-standard, high-efficiency delivery — reinforcing the physical backbone of Guangzhou's shipping hub, strengthening its global shipping-resource allocation capacity, and supporting Guangzhou's development as a maritime center city of national importance and the wider GBA build-out.

 

Phase V is one of the 102 major projects listed in China's 14th Five-Year Plan, a flagship initiative under the Powerful Transportation Country strategy, and a key pillar of the GBA's world-class port cluster. Located at the southern tip of Longxue Island in Guangzhou's Nansha District, at the geometric center of the GBA, the site sits just downstream of the Nansha International Multi-purpose Terminal now under construction.

 

With an estimated total investment of 14.447 billion yuan, Phase V will deliver an annual handling capacity of 6.7 million TEUs — 4.6 million from ocean-vessel berths and 2.1 million from barge berths. The project comprises four 200,000-DWT container berths for ocean-going vessels, alongside 15 supporting 5,000-DWT container barge berths and five workboat berths, with a total quay length of more than 3,800 meters. The terminal will accommodate the world's largest container ships around the clock, fully matching the demands of deep-sea trunk shipping and reinforcing the GBA's deep-sea route capacity, while also strengthening inland barge feeder services to unlock a seamless "ocean shipping + inland waterway" sea–river intermodal corridor.

 

Once operational, Phase V will work in close concert with Nansha's existing 20 container deepwater berths and the four deepwater berths in construction at the International General Terminal, driving a step-change in container handling and forming a specialized, large-scale and integrated world-class terminal cluster in South China with annual throughput of 35 million TEUs. Through transport links, industrial cooperation and shared services, the project will help build Guangdong's modern coastal economic belt and support the GBA's collaboration with eastern, western and northern Guangdong in developing an internationally competitive modern industrial system.

 

The dredging works will be carried out by the “Jun Guang”, the world's most advanced and Asia's largest trailing suction hopper dredger, built and owned by CCCC Guangzhou Dredging Co., Ltd. The vessel measures 198 meters in length, with a maximum dredging depth of 120 meters and a hopper capacity of 38,528 m³ — the second-largest in the world and the largest in Asia. Its design and construction delivered breakthroughs in 37 bottleneck technologies, and the ship features the world's first twin bow-jet system with adjustable elevation angle, achieving a rainbowing distance of over 12 kilometers. The “Jun Guang” is built for a wide range of major marine works, including port and waterway dredging, land reclamation and island building, subsea tunnel construction, offshore mineral development, and submarine fiber-optic cable installation — a high-end asset that marks a generational leap for China's dredging fleet and a cornerstone of the country's drive to become a maritime power. At Nansha Phase V, the “Jun Guang” will spearhead waterway dredging and land formation, showcasing a new, efficient, green and intelligent face for the dredging industry.