Tianjin Port, the largest in north China, handled 354 million tons of cargo by yesterday evening, said an official of Tianjin Port Group.

The port handled 8.5 million twenty-foot equivalent (TEU) units of containers in the past year, up 19.7 percent year-on-year.

When Tianjin Port opened in 1952, it was a small, shallow-water harbor capable of handling less than 700,000 tons of cargo a year. It has since become a deep-water port with many specialized berths.

In 2007, it handled 300 million tons of cargo and 7.1 million TEUs of container cargo, which put it in the sixth and 20th places in the world, respectively.

There are more than 400 ship movements at the port each month to all points of the globe.