Jiangsu is once again looking to ports to fill the most glaring gap among China's coastal provinces.
A few days ago, Governor Liu Xiaotao led a research trip to Lianyungang, Yancheng and Nantong, urging faster formation of a port alliance to achieve differentiated and coordinated development and boost the ports' radiating power, resource aggregation and industrial driving force.
Later, at a Jiangsu international shipping supply-demand matchmaking meeting, Vice Governor Ma Shiguang said all localities and departments should coordinate port function optimization, promote differentiated development of sea, river and inland ports, and strengthen port cluster synergy.
Developing toward the sea is Jiangsu's next growth bet. A widely circulated view: the economic gap with Guangdong is mainly maritime. Local scholars have said the difference in marine output value is nearly 1 trillion yuan. If Jiangsu can catch up on that key metric, its GDP will follow.
Ports are the core engine. Jiangsu's coast has long lacked a deep-water seaport on par with Shanghai's Yangshan or Ningbo-Zhoushan. In 2025, Jiangsu ranked first in port cargo throughput, but coastal ports accounted for less than one-fifth. With Qingdao and Rizhao to the north and Ningbo-Zhoushan to the south, Jiangsu is squeezed in between, facing the challenge of cargo diversion from its hinterland due to weak sea access.
Notably, two recent provincial-level statements both stressed differentiated, coordinated or synergistic development—one focused on the three cities, the other on sea, river and inland ports. Can the 'loose major province' change its weak coastal ports by banding together?
Jiangsu has 954 kilometers of coastline, but it is straight—a major defect meaning few natural deep-water harbors. Shandong has Qingdao, Yantai and Rizhao; Zhejiang has Ningbo-Zhoushan; Guangdong has Shenzhen and Guangzhou. These natural harbors support their provinces' maritime economies.
Image source: Jiangsu Coastal Area Development Plan (2021-2025).
Most of Jiangsu's coastline consists of muddy tidal flats, offering few natural deep-water harbor sites and making port construction far costlier than in other coastal provinces. By cargo throughput, Jiangsu's ports handled 3.71 billion tons in 2025, ranking first nationally. But coastal ports accounted for only 600 million tons, while inland river ports handled 3.11 billion tons. Among China's top 10 ports in 2025, only Suzhou Port in Jiangsu made the list — and it was the only inland river port.
That gap shows up in the broader marine economy. Jiangsu's marine gross domestic product grew 6.7% in 2025, outpacing the province's overall GDP growth by 1.4 percentage points and the national marine economy by 1.2 points. Yet the scale gap with leading marine provinces such as Guangdong, Shandong and Zhejiang remains. Jiangsu's marine GDP reached 1.08 trillion yuan in 2025, roughly half of Guangdong's 2.04 trillion yuan.
Without a strong sea-port network, Jiangsu's marine economy will always be hobbled. Zeng Gang, dean and tenured professor at East China Normal University's Institute of Urban Development, told Urban Evolution that Jiangsu has long emphasized port construction and has recently pushed to strengthen sea ports to improve its relatively weak position in opening up and gain more say and competitiveness in global trade.
Expanding toward sea ports is also a natural next step after years of developing along the Yangtze River. Nantong, a city with both river and sea access, once handled about 90% of its port throughput along the river. The city has proposed an 'optimize the river, expand to the sea' strategy, with a master plan of 'one port, four zones': three river-side zones — Rugao, Nantong and Tonghai — and one coastal zone, Tongzhou Bay.
In 2025, Nantong's ports handled foreign-trade goods worth 278.2 billion yuan, supporting more than half of the city's foreign trade. But river-side capacity is nearly exhausted. As local media put it: 'River ports are approaching saturation; incremental space must be found on the eastern coast.' Tongzhou Bay is Nantong's key step in its 'eastward breakthrough' and one of the key sites in Liu Xiaotao's latest research tour.
Zeng Gang said Jiangsu's government and investment agencies have already poured large sums into port construction at Tongzhou Bay and elsewhere. The next phase, he said, is to deepen and expand on that foundation, coordinate port development and pursue higher efficiency. Last month, temporary opening was approved for four docks and five berths at the Tongzhou Bay port area, allowing high-end equipment and marine engineering products to be shipped directly overseas without being trucked or barged through other ports.
Nationally, hub ports are consolidating their scale advantages, putting Jiangsu's sea-port ambitions under competitive pressure from provinces to the north and south.
To the north, Shandong's port cluster looms large. Lianyungang Port's cargo hinterland overlaps with that of Rizhao Port and Qingdao Port. Liu Jiangchuan, party secretary and researcher at Lianyungang Vocational and Technical College, and co-authors wrote that Lianyungang Port's basic conditions lag neighboring ports, and foreign-trade companies in Xuzhou and nearby cities still prefer Qingdao Port.
Data show Lianyungang Port's throughput was only about 366 million tons in 2025, trailing Rizhao Port's 645 million tons even though Rizhao began development half a century later.
To the south, Jiangsu depends heavily on Shanghai and Ningbo-Zhoushan ports for sea access. For example, Jiangsu Zhengxin and other key foreign-trade enterprises in Suqian still send export cargo by rail to those ports for shipment overseas.
Facing pressure from both north and south, leveraging its river-sea coordination advantage is Jiangsu's most distinctive competitive path. It is China's only province with major rivers, large lakes and sea access, and the only one where every prefecture-level city is connected by inland waterways. Its total inland waterway mileage and classified channel mileage rank among the top nationally.
Thanks to abundant water transport resources, Jiangsu's total social logistics costs have fallen to 12.6% of GDP, 1.3 percentage points below the national average. In Zeng Gang's view, efficiently linking the province's strong inland and Yangtze River shipping networks with seaports would create a logistics cost barrier other provinces would find hard to replicate.
In practice, Jiangsu has long faced unclear port integration and division of labor. A local scholar wrote that the 'Waterborne Jiangsu' coordination mechanism is weak, with overlapping functions among coastal, Yangtze and inland ports leading to disorderly competition. Zeng Gang also said Jiangsu's ports have strong overall capability, cargo sources and investment strength, but insufficient coordination among port, economic and transport departments has prevented the full potential of river-sea intermodal transport from being realized.
Jiangsu has clearly recognized these issues and is pushing reform at the provincial level. At the recent Jiangsu International Shipping Supply-Demand Matchmaking Conference, officials stressed the need for differentiated development of sea, Yangtze and inland ports and stronger port-cluster coordination. They also called for building a strong multimodal transport public platform and establishing long-term cooperation mechanisms to create a virtuous cycle where ports boost industry, shipping boosts trade, and trade strengthens ports.
For Jiangsu, the marine economy is not only new space for economic growth but also a key engine for resolving the development imbalance between northern and southern regions.
According to the Jiangsu Coastal Area Development Plan (2021-2025) approved by the State Council at the end of 2021, the coastal region's GDP is targeted to account for about 20% of the province's total by 2025.
But 2025 data show the three cities' combined GDP still accounts for 18% of the province's economy, missing the set target. Constrained by their development level, the coastal trio's ability to lead and drive the regional marine economy remains limited.
How to push differentiated development and upgrade their capabilities? Last February, Jiangsu released its first coastal zone and marine spatial plan, proposing an overall framework for coastal and marine spatial development, including a 'three verticals, three horizontals, three gateways' structure.
The 'three gateways' are Lianyungang as a Belt and Road international hub port, Yancheng as the outlet for the Huaihe River Ecological Economic Belt, and Nantong's Tongzhou Bay as a new Yangtze River container shipping gateway.
Zeng Gang also said the three cities should stick to their positioning, shore up weaknesses and strengthen distinctive strengths. Nantong needs to boost Tongzhou Bay's international service capabilities and competitiveness; Lianyungang must accelerate construction as a Belt and Road junction and restore its hub efficiency; Yancheng should invigorate private and foreign investment to give emerging industries stronger momentum.
A port's competitiveness also depends on how deeply it is integrated with industry.
During his research trip, Liu Xiaotao visited port terminals, industrial parks, logistics centers and petrochemical, energy and manufacturing enterprises. He said the city should advance deep integration of port, industry and city, and accelerate building a modern marine industry system. The port's hub radiance, resource aggregation and industry-driving capacity must be continuously enhanced, with greater emphasis on innovation, tackling 'bottleneck' products and key core technologies, and moving faster toward high-end industries and self-sufficient supply.
Zeng Gang said this precisely highlights the core issue for upgrading Jiangsu's seaports: they cannot serve merely as trade corridors but must be tied to local industries. Citing the Belt and Road initiative, he noted Lianyungang Port has failed to gain momentum mainly because of insufficient port-industry linkage. In contrast, the Chengdu-Chongqing China-Europe freight trains and Yiwu's inland port have achieved more because their corridor development is deeply bound to local industries such as electronic chips and small commodities.
In other words, port-industry-city synergy is the key to aligning Jiangsu's manufacturing strength with its port and shipping sector. The shipbuilding and marine engineering industry, a hallmark of Jiangsu's marine economy, has been given prominence. During the trip, Liu Xiaotao chaired a symposium on high-quality development of coastal industries, calling for faster development of high-end port-side industrial clusters and stronger marine engineering equipment and other leading industries.
Enterprises are another key focus of Jiangsu's port-industry linkage. At the province's international shipping supply-demand matchmaking conference, officials stressed the need to pay close attention to corporate demands, provide proactive services, and further improve port operations and logistics efficiency.
Some measures are already underway. In May, the Jinan, carrying 7,273 BYD new-energy vehicles, departed from Nantong Port for Europe. It was the port's first large-scale vehicle export operation. Zeng Gang said Nantong Port built a dedicated auto terminal for BYD, tying itself to the leading company through joint construction, joint operation, and shared benefits.
Zeng Gang added that, following this approach, Jiangsu should treat the rigid demands of leading enterprises as the most direct breakthrough for port-industry linkage, ultimately making ports an integral part of the industrial chain.