On 5 October 2026, CCTV reported (republished by Beijing Daily) that Ningbo-Zhoushan Port stayed busy through the National Day holiday, with large ships berthing in sequence and quay cranes working around the clock. The port has ranked first in the world by annual cargo throughput for 17 consecutive years.
At the Chuanshan port area, one of Ningbo-Zhoushan's busiest, the 14,432 TEU MSC NATASHA XIII (367 m long and 48.2 m wide) was one of the priority ships during the holiday before continuing on MSC's East Coast South America service. Operators planned crane allocation, staff and equipment in advance to cut time in port and protect schedule reliability.
Based on route schedules, Chuanshan expected 60 to 70 vessel calls over the holiday, running at near full capacity. Average daily handling was expected to exceed 35,000 TEU, and total throughput for 1 to 7 October was forecast at 245,000 TEU, roughly level with the same period of 2025. About 2,000 worker shifts per day were on duty, similar to normal operations.
The report highlights smart port tools, including remote controlled quay cranes, driverless trucks and a BeiDou plus AI navigation system that cut external truck route deviation by more than 10% and improved gate efficiency by 7%. In the first eight months of 2026 the port handled 30.4 million TEU, up 6.1% year on year, and it now operates more than 300 routes linking over 700 ports in more than 200 countries and regions.