THE northern port of Qingdao opened two new automated container berths, reports the UK's Seatrade Maritime News.

Qingdao Qianwan port area has planned to construct six berths with a designed handling capacity of 5.2 million TEU. The first two phases consisting of four container berths have already commenced operation and the fifth and sixth container berths are newly delivered having a throughput of 700,000 TEU.

Operation of the new berths will further expand production capacity of Qingdao port and enlarge foreign-trading market, commented Qingdao port.

Qingdao port posted a container throughput of 22.34 million TEU in the first three quarters of this year, an increase of 11.6 per cent year on year.