Overview of Valparaiso Port 2025: Digital Transformation and the New Normal of Operations at Chile’s Pacific Gateway
Valparaiso Port, Chile’s important seaport known as the “Pearl of the Pacific”, will continue to consolidate its position as the core logistics hub of Chile and the Pacific coast of South America in 2025. As a key node connecting Asia, North America and the west coast of South America, Valparaiso Port in 2025 has shown a brand-new look in terms of work operation, infrastructure upgrading, smart port construction and coping with global trade changes. The following is a detailed introduction to the work of Valparaiso Port in 2025.
I. Overall operation situation: throughput is stable and rising, and hub position is strengthened
Moving into 2025, Valparaiso Port is experiencing a busier operating cycle as the global supply chain recovers from the turbulence of the past few years. As one of Chile’s largest container ports, its throughput showed a steady increase at the beginning of the year. This is mainly due to the continuous growth of Chilean copper mines, lithium mines, fresh products such as cherries and blueberries, as well as the import demand of domestic durable consumer goods and intermediate products.
In 2025, Valparaiso Port further strengthened its function as a transshipment hub. Thanks to its excellent deepwater conditions, the port is able to accommodate a new generation of super Panamax container ships. The focus of work is no longer limited to traditional loading and unloading operations, but more attention is paid to the improvement of ship turnover efficiency. The port operator has significantly reduced the number of ships in port by optimizing the berthing schedule, making Valparaiso one of the most competitive ports on the west coast of Latin America.
II. Smart Port Construction: Comprehensive Implementation of Digital Transformation
2025 is the year when the digital transformation achievements of Valparaiso Port will be displayed intensively. To address chronic congestion issues and pain points of document processing inefficiencies, the port has comprehensively deepened the application of the Valparaiso Port Community System (VPCS).
Paperless operation is fully popularized: the port has realized paperless operation of the whole process from customs declaration, suitcase, arrival to departure. Truck drivers no longer need to carry thick paper documents and can complete all procedures only through mobile APP, reducing the passage time of dock gates to minutes.
Application of automated terminal technology: Although the traditional manual operation team has been retained, in major terminals such as TPS (Terminal Pacífico Sur), automated rail cranes and remote control systems have covered most yard operations. Operators in the control center can accurately control the quayside and yard cranes in the office a few kilometers away, which not only improves the accuracy of operations, but also greatly improves the working environment of workers and reduces the risk of work-related injuries.
Big data forecasting and scheduling: Port management uses big data models to accurately predict upcoming cargo peaks. For example, according to the data of previous years and the global shipping flow direction, the cold box electricity demand in the export season of Che Li Zi is predicted in advance, and the storage yard resources are reasonably allocated to avoid chaos in peak season.
III. Advantages of cold chain logistics: “green channel” for fresh export
For Chile, fruit exports are an important pillar of the national economy. Valparaiso Port in 2025 has been deeply optimized for this characteristic business. The port has expanded its refrigerated container storage area, added hundreds of refrigerated container sockets and introduced intelligent temperature control monitoring systems.
During the peak fruit export season from the end of each year to the beginning of each year, the port opens a “fresh green channel”. This mechanism runs through the whole process from orchard to cabin: priority declaration, priority port collection, priority berthing and priority loading. This refined working mode ensures that high value-added fruits such as Chilean cherries and grapes can be delivered to China, the United States and European markets in the freshest state, greatly enhancing the international competitiveness of Chilean agricultural products.
Green Sustainable Development and Infrastructure Construction
Responding to the call for decarbonization of the global shipping industry, Valparaiso Port made significant progress in green development in 2025. The port began to promote “shore power system” on a large scale to encourage ships to use shore power to reduce fuel emissions. At the same time, the proportion of new mobile machinery (such as electric trucks and electric forklifts) in the port area has been greatly increased, and noise and exhaust pollution have been effectively controlled.
In terms of infrastructure, in order to adapt to the trend of large-scale ships, the port will continue to promote channel dredging projects and berth reinforcement projects in 2025. This enables the port to accommodate multiple large container ships at the same time, greatly improving the throughput capacity of the terminal. In addition, the construction of logistics park behind the port is also accelerating, and the value-added service functions such as warehousing, distribution and packaging are increasingly perfect, which promotes the transformation of the port from a single transportation hub to an integrated logistics platform.
V. Challenges and responses: industrial relations and inland collection and distribution
Despite these achievements, the Port of Valparaiso in 2025 still faces some challenges. The first is the traditional labour relations problem. As Chile’s oldest port, trade unions are strong. While automation has increased efficiency, it has also raised concerns among some workers about job losses. In 2025, the port management adopted an active communication strategy to guide workers to transform into high-tech positions such as equipment maintenance and remote control by carrying out skills transformation training, thus maintaining social stability while promoting automation.
The second is the pressure of the inland collection and distribution system. As port throughput increases, pressure remains on the road linking the port to Santiago, the capital. In 2025, the port actively promoted the “revolution railway” project, using railways to share part of the container transportation pressure, trying to solve the bottleneck of land transportation and realize efficient connection between the port and the hinterland.
Valparaiso Port in 2025 is in a critical period in which tradition and modernity interweave, challenges and opportunities coexist. By embracing digital technology, deeply cultivating cold chain logistics characteristics and practicing green development concept, Valparaiso Port has successfully created an efficient, intelligent and green modern port image. It is not only the lifeline of Chile’s foreign trade, but also an important gateway to the global economic pulse of South America. In the future, with the further deepening of China-Chile trade, Valparaiso Port will play a more important role in the global logistics network.