Xinhua recently reported on The Symposium Celebrating the 90th Anniversary of China’s Sailors’ Union in Beijing. The article stated that China now has over 1.55 million sailors; of those, 650,000 are seamen. Today, 93% of the transportation used for Chinese import and export industries is sea-based. Over 95% of all oil and 99% of all ironstone rely on water transportation. Currently, the scale of China’s water transportation fleet is the fourth largest in the world. It includes 184,000 vessels, which translates into a transportation capacity of 124 million tons. Mainland China now has 12 out of the world’s top 20 ports with an annual freight handling capacity of over one-hundred-million tons.
Source: Xinhua, April 6, 2011
http://news.xinhuanet.com/politics/2011-04/06/c_121273093.htm