The morning light of August 11, 2026 has just fallen on the smart checkpoint at the Mandura Port, and the residual heat of the record breaking daily cargo throughput of 8001128 tons set on July 29 has not yet dissipated. The AGV unmanned transport vehicle is automatically completing the cargo transfer along the preset path, and the large-scale machine inspection equipment can complete the second level inspection of the entire batch of goods without opening the box. The large screen of the global intelligent control platform is real-time jumping with dynamic data such as the number of vehicles cleared on the day and the cumulative tonnage of goods passed.

This highway port located in Damao Banner, Baotou, has officially entered the ranks of high flow backbone ports on the China Mongolia border with a year-on-year freight growth rate of 202%. It is welcoming the policy dividends of the 15th Five Year Plan smart port construction project with a new intelligent attitude.

Hardware upgrade breaks through the bottleneck of customs clearance

The cargo volume of Mandula Port has significantly increased this time, firstly relying on the systematic upgrading of infrastructure. The Municipal Bureau of Commerce, in conjunction with Damaoqi and various joint inspection units, continues to improve supporting facilities such as port freight yards and inspection channels, expand and upgrade storage resources, and optimize the original seven in and three out freight inspection channels into a new layout of eight in and four out.

The port has fully implemented intelligent checkpoint and non-invasive inspection mode, completed the full channel facilitation transformation, directly increased the daily clearance capacity to 80000 tons, completely solved the pain points of congestion and insufficient transportation capacity during peak hours, significantly reduced the overall clearance time, and built a hardware foundation for efficient clearance. In the first half of 2026, the daily average traffic efficiency of a single channel at Mandula Port will increase by 52% compared to the same period in 2025, and the dividends of hardware upgrades will continue to be released.

Smart empowerment activates trade vitality

Mandula Port adheres to technology empowerment, intelligence and efficiency improvement, and regularly uses AGV unmanned transportation equipment. In the first half of 2026, the unmanned freight volume has exceeded 100000 tons. The port is equipped with large-scale machine inspection equipment, a comprehensive intelligent control platform is established, and convenient reforms such as replacing storage with containers and replacing scattered items with centralized ones are promoted. The overall inspection efficiency has been improved by more than 40%, and the transportation time of single vehicles has been shortened by nearly 60%, building an intelligent and efficient cross-border transportation system.

All departments should strengthen collaborative linkage, innovate diversified regulatory models, open green channels for bulk commodity clearance, and implement convenient measures such as appointment clearance and delayed operations. The port accurately cultivates cross-border cooperation with Mongolia, dynamically follows changes in Mongolia's freight policies, solidly ensures cross-border transportation, stabilizes the input of bulk goods, actively cultivates foreign trade market entities, guides enterprises to expand their bulk trade business with Mongolia, and achieves synchronous growth in freight volume and trade volume. At present, the total annual freight volume of Mandula Port has reached 9.0566 million tons, a year-on-year increase of 202%. Keywords: Mandula Port, Cross border Logistics

With the approval of the State Council, the Mandula Highway Port has been successfully included in the Smart Port Construction Project of the 15th Five Year Plan for Port Modernization issued by the National Port Management Office, providing strong policy support for the subsequent high-quality development of intelligence. From breaking the new record of 80000 tons per day to doubling the year-on-year freight growth rate, Mandula Port is closely following the deployment of the 15th Five Year Plan, continuously deepening the construction of a smart port, and making every effort to build a benchmark port for China Mongolia border opening to the outside world.Editor/Cheng Liting