In the first quarter of 2024, the total import and export volume of China's goods trade reached 11.84 trillion billion yuan, an increase of 15% over the same period last year, a record high for the same period in history. Private enterprises performed well, with the proportion of imports and exports rising to 57.3 per cent. Market diversification has achieved remarkable results, and imports and exports to the "Belt and Road" countries, ASEAN, Latin America and other regions have achieved double-digit growth. New export momentum continued to exert force, and the export of green products such as electric vehicles and lithium batteries increased significantly. At the same time, the expansion of domestic demand led to a steady increase in imports of energy, mechanical and electrical products.

On April 14, 2025, the second joint meeting of the port groups of the four provinces (cities) of the Yangtze River Delta was held in Nanjing. The meeting summarized the effectiveness of the coordinated development of the port group, deliberated and adopted the "Key Points of Work in 2026", and clarified the six major directions of improving the consultation mechanism, promoting project cooperation, improving service capabilities, building smart green ports, and reducing costs and increasing efficiency in service logistics. The purpose of the meeting is to deepen the linkage between government and enterprises, focus on integration and high-quality development, jointly promote the construction of world-class port groups in the Yangtze River Delta, and contribute to the construction of a strong transportation country.

The CAA has issued ten practical measures for people's livelihood in 2026, focusing on optimizing navigation services, business environment and crew services. Specifically, it includes piloting the "smart travel and navigation" service, setting up virtual navigation marks, providing heart-warming services on holidays, and building methanol fuel filling points. The implementation of license clearance processing, integrated approval services, appointment door-to-door office and "learning law to reduce penalties" mechanism; As well as the construction of crew service positions, the provision of health care and legal aid, etc. The aim is to enhance the sense of acquisition and happiness of the Yangtze River shipping practitioners.

On April 8, the "Dangan Pole" monitoring station of the Ship Traffic Management Center of the Guangzhou Maritime Safety Administration was officially put into operation, marking a key step in the supervision and expansion project of the core waters of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. Relying on the country's first purely domestic VTS system, the monitoring station will realize regular and accurate supervision of complex waters such as the Pearl River Estuary's Dandan Waterway and the Outer Lingding. It will focus on ensuring the traffic safety of key ships such as high-speed passenger ships and cross-border cargo ships. The total supervision area will be expanded to more than 2300 square kilometers, effectively filling the blind area of supervision and improving the water emergency response and logistics chain control capability in Dawan District.

On April 3, the Ministry of Transport held a ministerial meeting to convey the spirit of General Secretary Xi Jinping's important speech and study, deploy and implement measures. The meeting focused on promoting the high-quality development of transportation, improving the transportation system of Xiong'an New Area, and accelerating the intelligent and green and low-carbon development of transportation. The meeting stressed the need to thoroughly study and implement General Secretary Xi Jinping's important instructions on production safety, carry out in-depth investigation and rectification of major risks and hidden dangers in the summer and flood season, strengthen active prevention, strictly implement safety measures, and resolutely curb the occurrence of major and serious accidents. to ensure that the situation of transportation safety and production continues to be stable and good.

Analysis of pulp market rebound, price trends for softwood/hardwood pulp, high inventory pressure, weak paper demand, and impacts of Middle East tensions on commodity costs.

Analysis of cotton market trends: Peak season demand supports prices amid planting policy expectations. Outlook for Zhengzhou cotton trading range and key factors like Middle East tensions.

In order to implement the "artificial intelligence" action, the Ministry of Transport and other four departments jointly issued the "Intelligent Shipping 2030 Action Plan" to systematically plan the blueprint for the development of intelligent shipping during the "15th Five-Year Plan" period. The plan aims to break the bottleneck of development and cultivate new quality productivity of shipping through the deep integration of cutting-edge technologies such as artificial intelligence with the shipping industry. The plan sets two-phase targets for 2027 and 2030, and focuses on the four dimensions of technological research, application pilot, infrastructure and regulatory governance to deploy 11 key tasks, aiming to promote China's shipping from "parallel running" to "leading" in the world and provide solid support for the basic establishment of a transportation power in 2035.

On March 28, the "Far Sea Floating Island" (far-reaching sea all-weather resident floating research facility), a major national science and technology infrastructure undertaken by Shanghai Jiaotong University, was fully launched in Shanghai. This world's first super-large offshore scientific research platform adopts the innovative design of "semi-submersible double hull", and has the ability of 100-ton deep-sea equipment real-sea test and 10,000-meter deep-sea scientific research. It is expected that after completion in 2030, it will simultaneously serve the research needs of marine equipment, marine resources, marine science and other fields, provide a test platform for deep-sea mining, offshore oil and gas equipment, etc., and help resource development, marine ecological research and typhoon forecast accuracy. improve.

The third-phase expansion project of the ore terminal in Caofeidian Port, Tangshan Port, Hebei Province, has entered a comprehensive construction phase. Through the "micro-transformation" of the wharf, the project extends the coastline to the east by 120 meters, so that the total length of the berth reaches 910 meters, thus realizing the "two-wheel docking" mode of two 400000-ton ships berthing at the same time. After the transformation, the designed annual throughput capacity of the wharf will be increased to 37 million tons, which will greatly improve the efficiency of port operations and better serve the dense steel companies in the hinterland. It is an important measure for Tangshan Port to build a world-class comprehensive trade port and improve its comprehensive service capabilities.

The sea use of the fifth phase of the Nansha Port Area of Guangzhou Port has recently been approved by the State Council, marking a key breakthrough in this major national "14th Five-Year Plan" project. The total investment of the project is about 14.447 billion yuan, and four 200000-ton container berths and other facilities will be built, with an annual design capacity of 6.7 million TEUs. After the completion of the project, it will consolidate the status of Guangzhou Port as a container trunk port, enhance the international competitiveness of the port group in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, and provide a strong impetus for Guangzhou to build an international shipping hub.