Port industry representatives from around the world gathered in Yantai City, east China's Shandong Province to discuss the future of breakbulk shipping as China's ports are increasingly becoming hubs for the exchange of technology, management expertise, and business partnerships.
Instead of spending all their time in the meeting rooms, many of the delegates to the 2026 Breakbulk Cargo Logistics Industry Development Conference headed to the docks to see how China's ports are evolving.
At a port in Yantai, automated vehicles are moving exported construction materials with no human intervention.
These technologies have attracted port officials and industry representatives from around the world to Yantai.
They are here not only to see how one of China's major ports operates, but also to explore how experience and technology can be shared across a growing international port network.
For Chinese businesswoman Wang Xiangzhen, the attraction isn't the technology. It's the shipping route.
Her company exports Chinese trucks to Guinea. Since 2024, it has been using the dedicated shipping service through Yantai.
"It makes transportation much faster. Vessels bring bauxite from Guinea to China and then carry Chinese construction materials, infrastructure supplies and engineering machinery back to Guinea. The route is efficient in both directions," said Wang Xiangzhen, manager of Shandong Lutong Tiancheng Investment Group.
And some others were paying closer attention to how the port operates.
"What impressed me a lot is in terms of digitalization and the intelligent ports where we have a lot of smart tally. It's one thing which I also saw here which we are trying to introduce also in Kenya," said William K. Ruto, managing director of Kenya Ports Authority.
Ruto's trip to Yantai followed another visit just days earlier.
In Yancheng, also a port city in east China's Jiangsu Province, he joined representatives from several Maritime Silk Road countries for a port exchange program.
One outcome was a new cooperation agreement between Yancheng Port and Indonesia's state-owned port operator.
"We officially signed a friendly port cooperation agreement with Indonesia Port Corporation. The partnership will deepen cooperation in shipping and logistics, trade exchanges, port operations, as well as green and low-carbon development," said Yuan Xin, general manager of Yancheng Port Group.
For many of the overseas delegates, the visit was as much about building connections as it was about moving goods.
China's ports offer opportunities for technology, management exchange
