A major economic province is once again targeting its ports to address its most glaring coastal weakness. Days ago, the governor of Jiangsu Province led a research team to Lianyungang, Yancheng, and Nantong, emphasizing the need to accelerate the formation of a port alliance to promote differentiated and coordinated development, thereby enhancing the ports' radiating influence, resource aggregation, and industrial driving force. Subsequently, a provincial international shipping supply-demand matching conference was held, where it was stated that all regions and relevant departments should coordinate port function optimization, promote the differentiated development of sea ports, river ports, and inland river ports, and strengthen the synergy and linkage of the port cluster.
Developing towards the sea is the next growth pole Jiangsu is betting on. A widely circulated belief is that the economic gap between Jiangsu and Guangdong mainly stems from their maritime capabilities. Ports serve as the core engine for maritime development. For a long time, Jiangsu's coast has lacked a deep-water sea port comparable to Shanghai's Yangshan Port or Ningbo-Zhoushan Port. In 2025, Jiangsu ranked first nationally in port cargo throughput, yet its coastal ports accounted for less than one-fifth of the total. Looking at the regional landscape, with Qingdao and Rizhao in Shandong to the north and Ningbo-Zhoushan in Zhejiang to the south, Jiangsu finds itself sandwiched in the middle, facing the ongoing challenge of weak access to the sea and diversion of its hinterland cargo.
Notably, recent statements at the provincial level have twice emphasized the need for differentiated development, coordinated development, or synergistic linkage—one focusing on the three cities of Lianyungang, Yancheng, and Nantong, and the other on sea ports, river ports, and inland river ports. Can this "loosely organized major province" change its predicament of weak coastal ports by joining forces?
Where the Weakness Lies
Jiangsu boasts a 954-kilometer coastline, but it suffers from a major defect: it is straight and flat. This flatness means a lack of natural deep-water harbors. Shandong has Qingdao, Yantai, and Rizhao; Guangdong has Shenzhen and Guangzhou—these natural harbors support the marine economy of their respective provinces. In contrast, most of Jiangsu's coast consists of muddy tidal flats, lacking excellent port sites under natural conditions, making port construction costs far higher than in other coastal provinces. By port cargo throughput ranking, Jiangsu handled 3.71 billion tons in 2025, ranking first nationally, but its coastal ports only handled 600 million tons, while inland river portions reached 3.11 billion tons. Among the national top ten ports in 2025, Jiangsu had only Suzhou Port, and it was the sole inland river port on the list.
This is reflected in the overall marine economy data: in 2025, Jiangsu's gross marine product grew 6.7% year-on-year, 1.4 percentage points higher than the province's GDP growth and 1.2 percentage points higher than the national marine product growth. However, compared with strong marine economy provinces like Guangdong, Shandong, and Zhejiang, the scale gap remains. In 2025, Jiangsu's gross marine product was approximately half of Guangdong's during the same period. To a certain extent, without strengthening its sea ports, Jiangsu's marine economy will always remain "lame."
An expert from East China Normal University noted that Jiangsu has always valued port construction, and in recent years has been more determined to strengthen its sea ports to change its relatively disadvantageous position in opening up, thereby enhancing its voice and competitiveness in the global trade landscape. Looking further, expanding towards sea ports is also an inevitable requirement after Jiangsu's river-oriented development has reached a certain stage. An example is Nantong: as a city that is both along the river and the coast, Nantong Port previously completed approximately 90% of its throughput along the river. Earlier, Nantong proposed to optimize river development and expand towards the sea, clarifying a "one port, four zones" overall planning pattern, with three port zones along the river and one coastal port zone. Data shows that in 2025, Nantong's port services for foreign trade reached 278.2 billion yuan, driving over half of its foreign trade volume. But the space along the river is no longer sufficient—in the words of local media, the river ports are approaching saturation, and growth space must shift to the eastern coast.
Tongzhou Bay is a key step in Nantong's eastward breakthrough and was also one of the key points in this research tour. The expert believes that in the past, the provincial government and relevant investment institutions have invested substantial funds in building ports at Tongzhou Bay in Nantong, and the next phase plans to further deepen and expand on the existing foundation, coordinating port construction to promote more efficient development. Just last month, the temporary opening of four docks and five berths in the Tongzhou Bay port area of Nantong Port was officially approved, allowing high-end equipment, ship and marine engineering products to be shipped directly overseas without transshipment via other ports outside the region.
Intermodal Coordination
Examining the national port landscape, Jiangsu's sea port construction faces competition from provinces to the north and south. To the south, Jiangsu deeply relies on Shanghai Port and Ningbo-Zhoushan Port, using them to access the sea. To the north, it directly confronts the strong pressure of the Shandong port cluster. Facing this pincer attack, leveraging the advantage of river-sea intermodal transport is Jiangsu's most differentiated competitive route. Jiangsu is the only province in the country that simultaneously possesses large rivers, big streams, major lakes, and the sea, and it is also the only province where all prefecture-level cities have inland waterway connections. Thanks to its superior water transport resources, Jiangsu's total social logistics cost as a proportion of GDP has dropped to 12.6%, 1.3 percentage points below the national average. The expert suggests that if Jiangsu can efficiently connect its strong inland and river transport networks with its sea outlets, it can build a logistics cost barrier that other provinces cannot easily replicate.
However, in reality, Jiangsu has long faced issues of unclear port integration and division of labor internally. A local scholar noted that the efficient coordination mechanism of "Water Transport Jiangsu" is weak, with overlapping functional positioning among coastal, river, and inland ports, leading to disorderly competition. The expert also stated that Jiangsu's ports have superior comprehensive capacity, cargo supply conditions, and investment strength, but the coordination between port departments and economic and transportation departments is insufficient, preventing the full effectiveness of river-sea intermodal transport. Jiangsu has clearly recognized these issues and is driving change at the provincial level. The recent provincial international shipping supply-demand matching conference emphasized the need to promote differentiated development of sea ports, river ports, and inland ports, and strengthen port cluster collaboration. It also called for building and utilizing a multimodal transport public platform, establishing long-term cooperation mechanisms, and achieving a virtuous cycle of using ports to promote industry, shipping to boost trade, and trade to strengthen ports.
Integration
For Jiangsu, the marine economy is not only a new space for economic growth but also an important engine for solving regional development imbalances between north and south. According to the "Jiangsu Coastal Area Development Plan (2021-2025)," by 2025, the GDP of Jiangsu's coastal areas should account for about 20% of the province's total. However, based on 2025 data, the GDP of the three coastal cities still accounts for only 18% of the provincial economy, failing to meet the set target. Constrained by their development level, the three coastal cities have limited leading and driving effects on the regional marine economy.
How can the three cities achieve differentiated development and elevate their development levels? In February last year, Jiangsu released its first coastal zone and marine space plan, proposing to build a "three vertical, three horizontal, three gateway" pattern in the coastal zone. The "three gateways" are: Lianyungang as a jointly built international hub port for the Belt and Road Initiative, Yancheng as the sea outlet for the Huaihe River Ecological Economic Belt, and Nantong's Tongzhou Bay as a new sea outlet for Yangtze River container transport. The expert also said the three cities should closely follow their positioning, addressing weaknesses and strengthening strengths in advantageous areas. Nantong needs to focus on enhancing Tongzhou Bay's international service capability and competitiveness; Lianyungang needs to accelerate the construction of the Belt and Road intersection point to restore its hub efficiency; and Yancheng should activate private and foreign investment vitality to inject stronger momentum into emerging industries.
The competitiveness of ports also depends on the depth of integration with industry. During this research tour, the governor visited port terminals, industrial parks, logistics centers, and petrochemical, energy, and manufacturing enterprises. He pointed out that it is necessary to promote deep integration of port, industry, and city, and accelerate the construction of a modern marine industrial system. He emphasized continuously enhancing the ports' radiating influence, resource aggregation, and industrial driving force, paying more attention to innovation-driven development, targeting "bottleneck" products and key core technologies, and accelerating the leap towards high-end industrialization and autonomous supply. The expert believes this precisely highlights the core proposition of Jiangsu's sea port upgrade: ports cannot merely serve as simple trade channels but must be connected with local industries. He cited Lianyungang Port as an example, saying its failure to gain momentum fundamentally stems from insufficient port-industry linkage. In contrast, the Chengdu-Chongqing China-Europe Railway Express and Yiwu's inland port have achieved more significant results because their channel construction is deeply tied to local industries such as electronic chips and small commodities.
In other words, port-industry-city linkage is the key to mutual synergy between Jiangsu's manufacturing strength and its port and shipping capabilities. As the "golden signboard" of Jiangsu's marine economy, the ship and marine engineering industry has been placed in a prominent position. During this research tour, a symposium on high-quality coastal industry development was held, proposing to accelerate the creation of a high-end coastal industrial cluster and strengthen leading industries such as marine engineering equipment. Enterprises are another key focus of Jiangsu's port-industry-city linkage. The provincial international shipping supply-demand matching conference emphasized paying close attention to enterprise demands, providing proactive services, and further improving port operations and logistics transportation efficiency.
In fact, some deployments have already begun. In May this year, the "Jinan" ship, loaded with 7,273 BYD new energy vehicles, departed from Nantong Port docks heading to Europe. This was the first time Nantong Port undertook large-scale commercial vehicle export business. The expert said that Nantong Port precisely built a dedicated automobile terminal for BYD, binding with the leading enterprise through joint construction, joint operation, and shared benefits. Further expanding on this idea, the expert suggested that Jiangsu should use the rigid demands of leading enterprises as the most direct breakthrough for port-industry-city linkage, ultimately making ports a true organic component of the industrial chain.
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