East meets West in Chinese ports.

As trade booms, China invites overseas port operators to invest in its ports. Volume expected to increase at 25 percent annual rate.

There are few areas of Chinese transportation and logistics where Chinese planning and Western expertise have produced better results than in the area of ports.

China now has a large array of Sino-foreign joint ventures in most of its larger ports. Non-Chinese partners in these ventures include some of the world's most prestigious international port operators: the Hutchison group, the Port of Singapore Authority, Sea-Land, Maersk and P&O.

There was - and still is - a considerable need for additional port handling capacity and for enhanced efficiency. The policy of Chinese infrastructure planners and ports has been to invite overseas management skills - and overseas money - whenever required, generally as part of Sino-foreign joint ventures.

Joint ventures, "Along with the development of the economy and foreign trade, the throughput of containers will increase continuously," said Quan Peitao, senior engineer and vice chairman of the technical committee of China's Material Handling Institute.

Speaking at the recent Terminal Operations Conference in Barcelona, Quan said that "it is an inexorable trend" that China should have its own ocean container hubs "to satisfy the requirement of container transportation for 'security, high efficiency and rapidity.'"

The …