Eight out of China's top ten ports witnessed positive growth in the first half of this year, 21st Century Business Herald reported on Thursday.

Container throughput exceeded 20 million TEUs (Twenty-foot Equivalent Units) at Ningbo-Zhoushan Port in East China's Zhejiang province, in late July, 22 days earlier than the previous year.

Ningbo-Zhoushan Port handled 640 million tons of cargo in the first half of the year, ranking first among China's top 10 ports in terms of cargo handling capacity.

The container throughput of Shanghai Port in the first half this year was 22.54 million TEUs, ranking first in terms of container throughput.

The container throughput of Beibu Gulf Port increased 21.4 percent year-on-year in H1, ranking first in terms of container throughput growth.

Affected by the global economic downturn and COVID-19 pandemic, many ports experienced a V-shaped recovery in cargo throughput in the first half of the year.

Many ports have opened new Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership routes or relevant routes for RCEP countries, accelerated the construction of smart ports, and improved their competitiveness.

Guangzhou Port added 11 net RCEP routes, and the Yantai, Tianjin and Beibu Gulf ports also added many RCEP routes in the first half of the year.

The Beibu Gulf International Gateway Port currently has 101 berths of 10,000-ton class and above, with a comprehensive handling capacity of nearly 300 million tons, according to data released at a news conference on building a high-level land-sea corridor in Guangxi on Aug 3.

In addition, the traditional dry bulk cargo terminal was upgraded to a smart green terminal at Qiangang Company, a unit of Qingdao Port Corporation.