Zhoushan Port welcomes its first large liquefied natural gas carrier on Jan 30. [Photo by Zhou Qingtong for chinadaily.com.cn]

The cargo throughput of Zhoushan Port in East China's Zhejiang province increased 16.12 percent year-on-year to more than 48 million metric tons in January, local media reported on Feb 8.

The figure included 16.11 million tons of foreign trade cargo, a year-on-year increase of 14.2 percent.

"Statistics show that the throughput of large bulk cargo increased sharply last month at Zhoushan Port," said an employee at the municipal shipping and port administration, "Grain throughput growth doubled and oil, gas, and coal saw substantial increases."

In January, Zhoushan Port handled 1.25 million tons of grain, a 103 percent year-on-year increase, while throughput of oil and gas totaled 10.99 million tons and throughput of coal totaled 3.7 million tons, year-on-year increases of 34.6 percent and 56 percent.

In addition, container throughput at Zhoushan Port jumped 22.3 percent year-on-year to 165,800 twenty-feet equivalent units (TEUs) last month.

This year, Zhoushan Port has continued to improve its business environment by reducing customs clearance time to less than 30 hours for imports and less than two hours for exports.