24th IAPH World Ports Conference
Shanghai, China, 21-27 May 2005

The 24th IAPH World Ports Conference was held in Shanghai, China from May 21 through 27, 2005, with some 670 participants from 56 countries around the globe. It was the first IAPH World Ports Conference the was ever held in China.



At the Opening Session on May 23, the Chinese Minister of Communications and the Mayor of Shanghai City gave warm welcomes to IAPH delegates with some 1000 guests including VIPs from Chinese political and business circles.



Apart from IAPH Board Meetings and Technical Committee Meetings, there were two plenary sessions and six working sessions, the latter featuring 36 papers from speakers at the top of their professions. In his keynote speech for IAPH 50th Anniversary Celebration Session on May 23, Mr. Tommy Thomsen, CEO of Container Business, A.P. Moller-Maersk Group, told “You must expand or you will be the bottleneck.”, a fitting start given the conference theme of “Opportunities and Challenges Facing the World Ports”. He stressed “Ports are barely managing to handle today’s demand – they won’t be able to handle tomorrow’s growth unless something is done now.”


In the working sessions topical issues were discussed under the following themes; “Impacts of Economic Globalization on the Development of Port & Shipping Industry”, “Port Development Strategy”, “Port Security”, “Diversified Port Investment”, and “Environment and Dredging Projects”.


One of the highlights in the Conference was the technical visit to Shanghai’s new Yangshan Deepwater Port, a spot in which most of the world’s top port operators would like to invest. The final link in the 32.5km Donghai Bridge, connecting the mainland to the Yanshan Deepwater Port in Hangzhou Bay, was completed just in time for IAPH delegates to drive across it. The official opening ceremony took place during the morning of May 25, just hours before the visit. IAPH delegates became among the first to cross the new Donghai Bridge.