CHINA's Ministry of Communications says development of the nation's port sector has not yet overheated despite vast sums of money being poured into such facilities since a period of rapid development began in 2003, turning them into the busiest building grounds in the world.

Shen Yihua, the Deputy Director of the ministry's Water Transport Department, Transport Planning and Research Institute, said China's ports are unable to cope with demand for cargo transport, pointing to insufficient capacity and a lack of specialised terminals and deepwater.

Statistics show the total capacity of the mainland's seaports came to 2.52 billion tons in 2005 but the actual volume of sea freight reached 3.38 billion tons while there was also a 15 million TEU shortage of container capacity during that year.

A report by Xinhua noted that the State Council has published the National Coastal Ports Layout Plan, to define the roles of the mainland's various ports as a national guideline to port investment.

According to the plan, the ratio between the capacity and throughput of Chinese coastal ports will be 1:1 by 2010, which indicates that the growth of ports is in accord with the growth of the economy.

The Water Transport Department also plans to introduce new measures to prevent excessive competition among ports to avoid superfluous investment, the report said.