HONG KONG's Hutchison Port Holdings has established a joint venture with Xiamen International Port Co. to handle sea freight at China's seventh busiest port of Xiamen, whose throughput was four million TEU in 2006.

The venture, in which Hutchison Port will have a 49 per cent equity interest, will be responsible for managing one berth and assisting in the "coordination" of operations at two other berths at the port of Xiamen in southeast China, Bloomberg reports.



Xiamen International said a total of CNY737.8 million (US$100 million) will be invested in establishing the joint venture, which will have a registered capital of CNY454.7 million.



"The company will probably look for more investments as global trade continues to grow," Hong Kong-based analyst with Quam Ltd, Johnny Yeh, was cited saying in the report. "Hutchison has been doing well in profit growth at its port division."



The development comes as China's export trade posted growth of 27 per cent last year. By comparison, Hong Kong's ports have been suffering slower growth in container traffic as they lose ground to rival ports in the Yangtze River and Pearl River deltas, especially Shenzhen, where container handling costs lower and goods closer to production sources.



Hutchison Port Holdings is the world's biggest container terminal operator with 257 berths in 45 ports in Asia, Europe, the US and the Middle East. The company is a unit of Hong Kong-based Hutchison Whampoa Ltd.