The port of Jiangyin, Jiangsu province, said it expected its 2009 throughput to be more than 105m tons, a 20.1 per cent increase over the previous year.

Jiangyin is advantageously situated, being 201km from Nanjing and 162km from Shanghai. Near the city of Wuxi, it sits at the intersection of the Yangtze River and Xicheng Canal.

Another Yangtze port in Jiangsu, Taicang, said its cross-Taiwan Strait service was on course to handle 22,000 TEU in 2009, reported Xinhua. Taicang was one of the first batch of six ports to open a direct service to Taiwan in late 2008. Its total container volume is expected to exceed 1.5m TEU in 2009.

Meanwhile, France’s FM Logistics has opened a logistics facility in Taicang, its largest in China, Logistics Week reported. The facility covers an area of 100,000 sq metres and will specialise in providing distribution services for food, healthcare products and supermarkets.