An aerial view of Beibu Gulf Port. [Photo/China News Service]

Beibu Gulf Port will invest 67.6 billion yuan ($10.6 billion) in infrastructure construction in the next five years to turn itself into an international gateway port, announced Li Yanqiang, chairman of Beibu Gulf Port Group.

Priority will be given to the construction of large-scale and professional wharfs such as the 300,000-metric-ton deep-water berths and the 200,000-ton automatic container wharves.

The number of berths at Beibu Gulf Port will be increased to 120 by the end of the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25) period from the previous 90 that were completed in 2020. An additional handling capacity of 200-million-ton cargo and 5.4 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU) containers will be doubled from the port's current capacity.

Expressways, railways, ports and aviation logistic hubs will be built to boost its intermodal transportation efficiency by sea, rail, roads and aviation.

Li added that the port also plans to open more shipping routes to ASEAN countries and put new routes to areas such as North America, Europe and the Middle East into operation in the future.

It is expected that 12 new shipping routes will start operation this year and the number of new routes will reach 15 in 2022. More than 100 container shipping routes will be opened by 2025 and over 65 of them will be foreign trade routes.