The heads of SPG attend talks on the development of ports and serving national strategies on June 1. [Photo/WeChat account: Shandong-Port]

Shandong Port Group, or SPG – one of the biggest port operators in the world, based in Qingdao city in East China's Shandong province – is hailing progress that was made recently in forging ties with Tianjin Port Group.

A delegation led by SPG Chairman Huo Gaoyuan and General Manager Li Fengli visited Tianjin on June 1, where they spoke with counterparts Tianjin Port Group Chairman Chu Bin and President Jiao Guangjun.

The two parties shared views on serving national strategies, emphasizing their strong willingness to further strengthen bilateral collaboration.

They are now expected to leverage their respective geographical and resource advantages and facilitate port service capabilities, in a bid to better serve the new development paradigm featuring international and domestic trade.

It is understood that SPG has been moving closer to established ports worldwide and nationwide – and making all-out efforts to build internationally advanced smart and green ports, logistics hubs, ports for industry-city integration, finance and trade ports, as well as cultural and tourism cruise ship ports.

The two parties signed a strategic cooperation framework accord on building world-class seaports in Qingdao, on April 23 last year. This reportedly established a significant foundation for them to join forces to build an interconnected world-class port cluster and stabilize the global industry and its supply chains.

During the meeting, Huo praised Tianjin Port's recent impressive development.

"Since its establishment, SPG has been focusing on building a world-class sea port, through leveraging geographical advantages, optimizing port functions and layouts, improving international shipping service capacity and striving to develop emerging business," he said.

Huo added that Tianjin Port had delivered outstanding progress in port integration reforms, particularly in terms of turning a conventional port into an automated one, which deserved SPG's full attention.

"I hope that we can take this meeting as an opportunity to jointly serve national strategies and the new development pattern, making new contributions to safeguarding the stability of global industrial and supply chains," he said.

After the meeting, Shandong Port Equipment Group and Tianjin JinAn Heavy Equipment Group – units of the two port operators – signed a strategic cooperation agreement, in order to seize opportunities presented by smart port construction and to pool their respective market and technical resources.

It is expected that this will help them achieve deeper collaboration in areas related to port facility manufacturing and with the upgrading and transformation of various products and services.

Shandong Port Equipment Group and Tianjin JinAn Heavy Equipment Group – units of the two major Chinese port operators – sign a strategic agreement. [Photo/WeChat account: Shandong-Port]