The 2008 Ocean Transportation Report released by United Nations Conference on Trade & Development has shown Singapore, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Shenzhen and Pusan to be the world's top 5 ports.

Shanghai Port's container throughput has risen by 20% as compared to 2006 and exceeded that of Hong Kong, which experienced only a 1.45% growth in container throughput, pushing the world's previously largest port to the second place, while the positions of the other ports remained unchanged.