In the first half of 2026, Chinese ports handled 9.07 billion tons of goods, a volume that represents an increase of +2.0% over the first half of the year last year, the new traffic record for the first half of the year and the second highest in absolute terms, being inferior only at the half-year all-time high of 9.43 billion tons recorded in the second half of 2025. Even just traffic handled by Chinese seaports in the first six months of 2026 set a new record for this time of year being amounted to 5.87 billion tonnes (+3.0%), a volume that was Lower only than the all-time record of 5.93 billion tonnes of the second half of 2025. The traffic handled by the Chinese inland ports in the first half of this year marked a slight growth of +0.2% having been equal to 3.21 billion tons of cargo.

In the first half of this year, the only traffic with the foreign market handled by Chinese ports was 2.85 billion tonnes (+4.3%), a volume that constitutes the new record for this time of year and is the second most high in absolute terms behind the total for the second half of 2025. The only foreign traffic handled by seaports is 2.57 billion tons (+4.6%), a volume that is the new record for the first half of the year, while traffic international transport handled by inland ports was 284.4 million tons (+1.2%).

In addition, in the first six months of 2026, Chinese ports set a new all-time record for container traffic by having handled a total of 182.9 million TEUs (+5.9%), with new historical records of both container traffic handled by the seaports, which amounted to 161.0 million TEUs (+5.9%), both of the only containers handled by the Inland Ports, which was equal to to 21.9 million TEUs (+5.6%). Among the main Chinese ports for Containerized traffic, in the first half of 2026 the port of Shanghai handled 28.7 million TEUs (+6.2%), the port of Ningbo-Zhoushan 22.9 million TEUs (+8.8%), the port of Shenzhen 18.6 million TEUs (+7.7%), the port of Qingdao 17.6 million TEUs (+7.2%), the port of Guangzhou 14.0 million TEUs (+2.9%) and the port of Tianjin 13.0 million TEUs (+6.1%).

In the second quarter of 2026 alone, freight traffic handled by Chinese ports was 4.68 billion tons, unchanged compared to the same period last year year, of which a record traffic of 2.99 billion tons handled by seaports alone (+0.9%) and 1.69 billion tons from inland ports (-1.6%).

In the second quarter of this year, traffic alone was equal to a total of 1.43 billion of tons (+0.9%), which is the highest volume ever achieved at this time of year. Seaports alone have handled a record foreign traffic for this quarter and equal to 1.28 billion tonnes (+1.4%), while traffic with Foreign exports in the Inland Ports fell by -3.1% to 141 million of tons.

In the period April-June of this year, Chinese ports recorded a new historical record of quarterly traffic of having handled a total of 93.3 million containers TEU (+3.7%). The new peak was reached both thanks to the historical record of 81.9 million TEUs handled by the seaports (+3.5%) and the all-time record of 11.4 million TEUs handled by inland ports (+5.4%).