Guinea bauxite unloaded at Yantai Port

A cargo ship from Guinea unloaded 170,000 tons of bauxite from Guinea at Yantai port on Monday, establishing China's first bauxite transportation line connecting Guinea mines with Chinese consumers.

Kassory Fofana, minister of State at the President's office was at at the unloading ceremony at Yantai port.

"The cooperation project not only created jobs for young people but brings business opportunities to Guineans," said Fofana.

Zhou Bo, chairman of Yantai Port Group said, "The transportation line is a demonstration project of Yantai port developing overseas transportation lines along the Belt and Road.

"Guinea boasts 30 percent of the world's premium bauxite. The transportation line provides a solid foundation for Yantai port building a complete transportation network for bauxite," said Zhou.

Zhou said it takes 40 days for cargo ships loaded with bauxite to arrive at Yantai Port before being distributed to its Chinese consumers.

To facilitate the transportation line, a new port project was constructed at Guinea's Boke port. The Boke port project is jointly invested by Yantai Port, China Hongqiao Group, Winning Shipping Co Ltd and Boke Mining Co.

Constructed and operated by Yantai Port Group, the first stage of Boke project features three berths with design capacity of handling 10 million tons of bauxite every year.

Zhou said Yantai Port is accelerating its pace of constructing transportation bases for energy, ores, containers, coal, and chemical fertilizers to turn the Yantai Port into an important transportation hub.