THE Yangtze River port of Hefei recently held an inauguration ceremony of the new container shipping service to Shanghai, Xinhua reports.

The service offers one-stop customs clearance for shippers in Hefei. They only have to go through all the procedures for their imports or exports at the Hefei customs instead of going to Shanghai.

Hefei port\'s container terminal is operating four shipping lines with 15 sailings per week. It handled 50,000 TEU of containers in 2011.

The second phase of the Hefei port container terminal and the port\'s navigation channel upgrading project, costing a total of CNY2 billion (US$316.2 million), is soon to start construction. After their completion in 2013, Hefei container terminal\'s annual throughput capacity will be raised to over 500,000 TEU.