Abstract:

The container traffic in the economic zone of the pearl River Delta has increased with a mean annual rate of 50% since 1990.It reached 5.51 million TEU in 1993,but 99 percent of those containers were transhipped in Hong Hong port with only one percent shipped directly in the ports of the delta.The containers were transported into Hong Kong port mainly by land route,accounting for 81.7%,the rest by waterway.At present,ocean container entrepot needs to be developed in the Pearl River Delta.The reasons are as follows:1) There is a large amount of container cargo in the delta.It is predicted that container cargo will reach 10-12 million TEU by 2000,and 21-25 million TEU by 2010.A port that handles 1.5 million containers Per year can achieve good economic benefit.2) It would cut down on short-dissect traffic charges and handling charges.The charge of the two items amounted to 40 billion HKD in 1993.3) It is impossible for Hong Kong port to saed the pressure of container traffic increasing one-fold in every 4-5 years.Part of the containers would be shipped by the ports in the Pearl River Delta.Guangzhou port and Shenzhen port should be built into the ocean container ports within 5-10 years.

Key words: The Pearl River Delta, The economic zone, Container ertrepot