Unlike most company employees who get short break after lunch, employees at Guoyuan port in Liangjiang New Area are back on duty as soon as they finish their meal after the Spring Festival holiday is over. It has almost become a routine for them.

The grueling schedule is due to the port's large container throughput, which reached a record high during the festival, up 50 percent compared with the same period last year.

According to Xu Wenjun, an official from the port, the outbound commodities are mainly automobile and motor spare components, wood materials, chemical products, and other kinds of productive supplies. The demand for these products has recovered to normal levels with the improvement of the global COVID-19 situation.

The six berths at the port are currently operating at full capacity, with more than 600 workers in place.

Big data contributed to the surging export demand. Staff members can now sit in the central control room and monitor ships driving into or out of the port, as well as real-time information when containers are loaded or unloaded.

Statistics show that on Feb 7 – the first weekday after the festival, the port posted 400 twenty-foot equivalent units in throughput within just four hours.