A container vessel offloads its cargo at Dapukou container wharf at Ningbo Zhoushan Port in East China’s Zhejiang Province. File Photo: cnsphoto

East China's Port of Ningbo-Zhoushan, one of the world's busiest cargo hubs, completed its throughput target set for the first half of the year, its listed arm said in a stock filing on Sunday, despite a recent flare-up of COVID-19 inflections that lead to the temporary closure of one of its wharfs and caused fears that this may affect global shipping. 

The port reached an operating income of 10.86 billion yuan ($1.68 billion), with an annual increase of 22.11 percent in the first six months of this year. Net profit surged 35.91 percent to 1.98 billion yuan. 

The port attributed its robust growth during H1 to the sustained economic recovery of the world's second-largest economy, strong demand for exports and stable epidemic control.

The port handled 486 million tons of goods from January to June with an annual increase of 8.9 percent. Container throughput reached 17.66 million units, up 22.4 percent from the same period last year.

Notably, both figures exceeded the goal as annual targets of the port are 943 million tons of goods and 33 million containers , the company said.

In particular, the port handled 75.21 million tons of mineral ore, 35.84 million tons of coal and 47.54 million tons of crude. Those figures were 5.4 percent, 22.5 percent and 1.2 percent higher than that in 2020, respectively.

In mid-August, operations at the Meishan Wharf of the Ningbo-Zhoushan Port were suspended and containers could not be shipped out due to a positive case of COVID-19, causing concerns that global shipping might be affected due to the partial shutdown. However, the port managed to retain nearly 90 percent of its throughput capacity.

The Meishan Wharf resumed operations last week.