A ship carrying 50,700 tonnes of soybeans from Brazil arrived at the port of Panjin in northeast China's Liaoning Province, marking the commissioning of the port's role for grain imports.

Panjin port, the fifth designated grain-importing port in Liaoning, is among the nine ports approved by the China General Administration of Customs on May 8 to handle and supervise grain imports.

After the Panamanian transport vessel "AlANTAS" docked at the Panjin Grain Terminal, grain unloaders transported the soybeans to a fully-enclosed conveyor at a speed of 700 tonnes per hour.

The grain was sent directly to oil mills owned by Liaoning Huifu Rongxing Protein Technology Co. Ltd.

Panjin is China's major distribution center of grain and oil products with a number of food processing facilities invested by internationally competitive firms such as Beidahuang Group, Yihai Kerry, Beijing Grain Group and COFCO.

China Grain Reserves Group Ltd. Co. has also based its largest grain storage facility in Panjin with advanced equipment and technology for warehousing, logistics and grain and oil processing.

Before the port of Panjin was put into use, foreign vessels had to dock at the port of Yingkou, 131 km away.

"Compared with the previous unloading at the port of Yingkou, our company can save 3 million yuan (433,900 U.S. dollars) in logistics cost per ship to receive the imports in Panjin," said Xu Dianjie, head of Huifu Cereals and Oils Group.

He said the company will berth three shipments of imported soybeans at the port of Panjin every month, which will supply markets in the Northeast Asia region.

The company based in north China's Hebei Province has invested 1.86 billion yuan to build two feed protein production lines in Panjin. Enditem