(Yicai) Dec. 5 -- The first Pudong Shipping Week has opened in Shanghai, a leading international maritime center, with a focus on the industry’s green, low carbon, and digital transformation.

The six-day event, which began yesterday, aims to provide a platform for industry cooperation and communication between the sector’s upstream and downstream participants. 

The PDSW comprises a conference hosted by the Shanghai government and 40 activities held by global organizations, companies, industry associations, and scientific research bodies, covering scientific and technological innovations, legal arbitration, financial insurance, and other themes, Yicai learned. 

Shanghai will rely on its Pudong district, a frontrunner in China’s reform and opening-up process, as it spares no effort in building a world-class shipping hub, Ye Xing, deputy director of the city’s transportation commission, said at the conference yesterday. 

Shanghai will also further upgrade the local shipping infrastructure and enhance its shipping service capabilities to build a digital, smart, green, low-carbon brand, Ye added.

Shanghai is a leading international maritime hub because of its strategic location on major shipping routes, government policy support, financial center resources, as well as significant public and private investment.

Shanghai has the world’s biggest and one of its busiest container ports, and the city hosts the regional headquarters of a number of shipping firms, organizations, and associations, while its shipyards build all sorts of vessels, including container ships and crude oil tankers. Shanghai is also a major center for Asia’s cruise line business.

Following years of development the Port of Shanghai is the world’s most automated container port. Globally, it ranked first by container throughput for 13 years and third by comprehensive shipping strength for four straight years, only behind London and Singapore, according to the Xinhua-Baltic International Shipping Centre Development Index report. 

Among the business executives and industry leaders who also made speeches at the PDSW conference were Lin Ji, vice general manager at China Cosco Shipping, Robert Ashdown, secretary general of the International Association of Classification Societies, and Andreas Nordseth, director general of the Danish Maritime Authority, also made speeches at the conference.

A number of innovations in shipping were unveiled at the conference, including a digital system for the platform-based design of large cruise ships developed by Shanghai Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding, a comprehensive assessment system for vessel clean energy made by China Classification Society, and Cosco Shipping's digital shipping solutions platform. 

Editors: Dou Shicong, Martin Kadiev