The Chinese Port of Fuzhou handled one million TEU in 2006, making the facility one of the 12 busiest container ports in China, and one of the top 100 box handling facilities in the world.

The strong performance comes after a customs clearance measure called "customs application at local customs offices to get cargo released at ports" was expanded last year to cover the Strait West Bank Economic Zone, which includes Xiamen.

Customs in Fuzhou first launched the customs clearance programme in July 2004, a report by mainland publication Logistics Week said.

The programme has since been expanded in January when the customs clearance system was widened to cover Hangzhou, Ningbo, Shantou, Nanchang, Wuhan, Changsha, Guiyang and Yinchuan, following the signing of a regional cooperation agreement between the customs authorities in Fuzhou and Xiamen.

The number of cargo manifests filed under the new customs clearance system in the first 11 months of 2006 amounted to 25,347 declarations, an increase of 110 per cent over the same period the previous year, the report added.