Annual Report 2019

19 ANNUAL REPORT 2019 throughput of 0.92 million TEUs, up by 6.8% year-on-year, and a bulk cargo volume of 5.68 million tonnes, up by 20.2% year-on-year, driven by the increased import volume of raw materials for infrastructures and grains in Ethiopia. Container throughput handled by Kumport Liman Hizmetleri ve Lojistik Sanayi ve Ticaret Anonim Ş irketi in Turkey was 1.28 million TEUs, representing an increase of 1.9% year-on-year; while bulk cargo volume handled was 0.10 million tonnes, up by 19.8% year-on-year. Terminal Link SAS (“ Terminal Link ”) handled a container throughput of 13.25 million TEUs, down by 2.8% year-on-year. Strategic deployments in the ports operation In 2019, the Group, with an unwavering aspiration, adhered to its strategic directives and the general operation philosophy of “enhancing core capability, insisting on both quality and efficiency, capitalising on opportunities of this era and striving to become a world’s leading enterprise”, and shored up its foundation and made innovation with a pragmatic attitude. Striving for breakthroughs in six key aspects, namely the development of homebase port, overseas expansion, comprehensive development, innovative development, operation management, and marketing and commerce, the Group actively pushed forward various key tasks and optimised and upgraded its core ports operation over the past year, and successfully achieved various operational objectives. Regarding the development of homebase port, the Group continued to transform by benchmarking against the world- class standard, striving to build globally leading ports. In the West Shenzhen homebase port, the Group persevered with enhancing the overall competitiveness through various measures. Various upgrading construction projects were advanced, such as channel dredging, berths upgrading and cranes heightening, to resolve the key historical bottleneck of the channels’ navigation capacities and upgrade the hardware facilities and infrastructures. The Group also stepped up its efforts in pushing forward the integration of feeder services and customs clearance, and the information sharing between barges of two terminals and visualised operation for the entire process were substantially achieved with the