CHINA's big three container ports, Shanghai, Hong Kong and Shenzhen, have enjoyed a container throughput growth of 289 per cent from 1997 to 2007 that accounted for 64.5 per cent of Chinese volume in 2001 with Hong Kong alone contributing 39.3 per cent of it.

But as manufacturing has moved from the coast and spread inland where labour is more affordable, second tier ports of Ningbo, Qingdao, Tianjin, Xiamen, Guangzhou, Dalian, Yingkou and Lianyungang - still in China's top 10 - are enjoying the big growth - 14.7 per cent in 2007-12 against 4.1 per cent for the big three.

Indeed, Hong Kong saw container throughput fall by 5.3 per cent in 2012, while lifts were down 5.8 per cent year on year over the first 10 months of 2013, reports London shipbrokers Clarksons.

While a dock strike contributed to the shortfall, the broader cause of the continuing decline in 2013 is the strong competition from smaller ports in the Pearl River Delta, as well as the gradual shift of manufacturing from the region to the interior. Indeed Hong Kong's neighbour, Shenzhen, has also experienced lacklustre growth - just 0.5 per cent year on year in 2013.

Much of this growth was driven by the proximity to new centres of Chinese manufacturing growth such as the Yangtze River Delta and northern economic zones. Even rising overland demand from Russia, Central Asia and now from western Europe with new rail freight services, box volumes are taken from the big three coastal ports.

In 2012, mainland China's second tier ports saw their combined annual throughput (83.1 million TEU) surpass that of the top three for the first time, a gap that will expand in 2013, as handling at the ports grew 5.5 per cent year on year in 2013 through October, compared to a 0.1 per cent decline for the top three.

But this shifting port growth will not stop here, says Clarksons. So far in 2013 throughput growth at smaller ports outside the top 10 has outpaced that at the larger, due to more established facilities. In future, the key sources of Chinese throughput growth look likely to be found further down the port hierarchy.

The rapid development of Chinese manufacturing over the last couple of decades drove the dramatic expansion of containerised exports, necessitating the swift development of Chinese container ports.

By 2012, TEU lifts at Chinese mainland ports accounted for 30 per cent of global lifts, more than double their share in 2001, when China entered the World Trade Organisation (WTO). When throughput at the port of Hong Kong is included, China's share of global lifts last year reached 33 per cent.

In 2012, Chinese mainland port volume reached 176.5 million TEU, up from just 27.5 million TEU in 2001. Including Hong Kong, there are now a total of 23 Chinese ports with annual throughput of more than one million TEU, bringing total lifts at Chinese ports to 199.6 million TEU last year.

As a result of this rapid expansion, there are now 10 Chinese ports in the global top 20, and seven in the top 10 with Shanghai leading at 32.5 million TEU in 2012, making it the world's busiest container port.

The great lament of yesteryear, that economic activity was restricted to coastal regions, leaving the Chinese interior bereft of opportunity, is no longer the case, or at least not nearly as much as it was because more and more low-end industries have been attracted to inland cities and towns.

Moreover, throughout this period China has been laying in road, rail and waterway infrastructure that links affordable labour and factories to the means of exporting goods overseas at competitive prices that get them to western retail shelves, and increasingly to a burgeoning domestic consumer market linked to e-commerce delivery.

So while China is lifting as many boxes as ever - even more - the big three of Shanghai, Hong Kong and Shenzhen - are not keeping pace with the growth of smaller ports that find themselves closer to the new inland factories.