The Yangtze River to its north and facing the Yellow Sea to its east, Nantong is surrounded by water at three sides and has 430 km -long coast- and shore-lines. Nantong Port is a member of the International Shipping Association and a member port of Shanghai International Shipping Center. As a big open, multifunction-al and comprehensive port in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, it is also one of the top 10 ports in China and the second largest port along the Yangtze River. The first phase of the dredging project at the estuary of the Yangtze River has been finished and the depth of water there reaches 8.5 meters, allowing 50,000-70,000 DWT tonnage vessels to go through. When the second phase is finished, vessels of tonnage of 100,000 can reach Nan-tong directly. There are 45 berths of various kinds, of which 28 are of 10-thousand tonnage, mainly handling transport and transit of international containers, minerals, fodder, timber, coal, steel, chemical fertilizer, oil, bulk sugar, grain, construction materials, petrochemical products, etc. as well as passengers. Nantong Port has routes to199 ports in 65 countries and regions including USA, Russia, Canada, Australia, Japan and Singapore. It has also launched shipping lines for international container service to Hong Kong, Japan and South Korea. In 2004 the port`s annual handling capacity reached 72.18 million tons and the annual shipment of international containers hit 287,000 standard containers. 

NETDA has a 27.3 km-long shoreline of the Yangtze River, the waters in the section being wide and deep, 12 meters on average. Along the shoreline seven wharves of tonnage of 100,000 and three 1,000-tonnage ones have been built. Also built is a storage tank farm of the capacity of 730,000 cubic meters for storage of various kinds of liquid chemicals. All the facilities facilitate shipment and storage of containers, bulk cargo, chemicals, petroleum and liquefied petroleum gas.