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Hainan is China's southernmost province, located so far south in the Gulf of Tonkin (known in China as the Beibu Gulf) that Hainan could be seen geographically as part of South-east Asia. It faces a number of rivals in its bid to become a regional trading and shipping hub. They include not only the currently dominant Singapore and Hong Kong, but also another southern Chinese province, Guangxi.
Even so, Hainan should be able to capture a good share of trade around the Beibu Gulf. Petrochemical plans for the South China Sea will support Hainan's position as oil- and gas-related port facilities are put in place. Territorial rivalries in the South China Sea create a risk for some of Hainan's export-processing ambitions, but also support the island's economy through military investment in naval base facilities.
Infrastructure development
The city of Sanya on the southern shore of the island, noted for its tropical weather, is a key tourist destination, with 10.2m arrivals in 2011 (up by 15.7% year on year). This in itself requires the development of port infrastructure: the current construction of a roll-on/roll-off passenger terminal at Haikou port involves an investment of US$380m, and will be able to handle 3.1m cars and 20m passengers a year when the first phase opens in 2013. Sanya and the provincial capital, Haikou, are also reported to be investing in the upgrade of cruise ship facilities as they compete against each other for cruise calls.In addition to passenger traffic, however, Hainan's future lies in the development of cargo and export-processing facilities. Not only does Hainan sit astride China's key shipping lines—the South China Sea, through which all of China's seaborne trade with Western destinations must pass—but the province is also well-placed to tap China's broader plans to develop the Beibu Gulf, including nearby Guangxi province. Hainan is not yet connected to the mainland by bridge, which means that nearly all inputs for its manufacturing industry, as well as finished goods destined for the mainland, must be transported by ship.
The speed with which Hainan has ramped up its logistics industry has been impressive. As recently as 2009, Hainan recorded throughput of 585,200 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs)—a figure that more than doubled to 1.22m TEUs in 2011. The province as a whole recorded throughput of more than 100m tonnes in 2011, and the current five-year economic plan envisages throughput more than doubling to 227m tonnes (4.65m TEUs) by 2015. The province had 37 container shipping routes in place in late 2011, with routes to Shanghai, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Thailand, Australia and elsewhere.
Yangpu to expand
Haikou port is the largest in Hainan, accounting for roughly two-thirds of total provincial container throughput in 2011. Other ports in the province include Yangpu, Basuo, Sanya and Qinglan. Haikou is developing new port areas at Macun and Xinhai, but the development of Yangpu is prioritised in provincial plans. In 2011 Yangpu reported container throughput of 314,000 TEUs, up by 49.6% year on year, and tonnage of 8.75m tonnes, up by 42.5%.Government plans envisage combining Yangpu—the best deepwater port in the province—with Haikou in a single cluster by 2015, with the ambitious target of having each raise throughput to more than 100m tonnes by then. The pace of increase in throughput at Yangpu is such that tonnage is likely to exceed 10m tonnes this year, and in July 2012 it was announced that that the state-owned company that owns Yangpu port had formed a joint venture with Singapore's Jurong port to turn Yangpu into a regional shipping and logistics hub.
In late 2011 a Dutch company, Royal Vopak, also began construction of a crude oil terminal in Yangpu, to be complete by 2015 with an eventual investment of Rmb7bn (US$1.1bn). The investment will include a 300,000-tonne oil dock and an eventual crude and refined oil capacity of 5.2m tonnes. A state-owned oil company, CNOOC, is also building a petrochemical refinery that aims to begin refining petroleum from the South China Sea in December 2012, as well as a liquefied natural gas (LNG) handling facility in Hainan, to come online in 2014. China's other oil giant, CNPC, also plans investments in LNG storage facilities in Hainan.
Strategic concerns
The emphasis on developing Hainan's port and logistics infrastructure to serve the oil and gas industry partly reflects China's competition for sovereignty over resource-rich maritime areas in the South China Sea. Hainan officially administers the territories that China claims in the area, which are included in official Chinese maps of Hainan island. In June 2012 Hainan elevated a town on one of the Paracel Islands, Sansha, to prefecture-level status, granting it formal administrative powers over the Paracel Islands, the Spratly Islands and the submerged reefs of the Macclesfield Bank. The move was vocally opposed by other countries in the region that also make claim to the same territories.In May 2012 CNOOC began to drill for oil in the northern part of the South China Sea, but China has also sought bids for oil exploration in disputed maritime areas much closer to Vietnam. The political risks attached to much of this development make it unclear when all China's long-term plans for hydrocarbon development in the South China Sea might come to fruition, although the existing drilling programme may lead to oil and gas extraction.
This highlights the strategic role of port development on Hainan: some port developments are under the control of the military and designed to allow naval force projection across the disputed sea area. It was reported in 2008 that China had built a nuclear submarine base near Sanya, and the current intensification of tensions in the South China Sea should lead to further military investment on Hainan island.
Success?
Hainan's location does give it an advantage in ports and logistics, and China has already enjoyed a large measure of success in ramping up container throughput on the island. Yangpu port is a state-level development zone with the authorisation to develop bonded warehousing facilities, and the province also aims to develop export-processing, to service the wider South-east Asian economy.Much of the development of port facilities is in the Yangpu Economic Development Zone, giving the local authorities the scope to offer tax and other concessions to promote logistics and export processing. For example a Taiwan contract manufacturer, Foxconn, is reportedly set to start construction on a high-tech manufacturing plant in Haikou by the end of the year, presumably to serve the South-east Asian market.
Investment in ports, logistics, oil and LNG handling facilities, tourism and naval bases will underpin the Hainan economy in the near term, meaning the outlook for the province looks relatively positive. However, wider conflict in the South China Sea could have an impact on some of these developments on Hainan.
While it is unlikely that full-blown naval conflict will be seen over the disputed maritime areas, such a development could hamper Hainan's attempts to offer itself as a trade and processing zone serving the very countries in South-east Asia with which China has territorial disputes.
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