Taipei - Taiwan's Kaohsiung Harbour plans to build a deep-water container terminal to attract the world's largest container ships, a harbour official said Friday.

The terminal would consist of five 17-metre-deep wharves, the deepest wharves among Taiwan ports, Harbour Master Tsai Ting-yi said.

The Beijing-based, government-owned China Ocean Shipping (Group) Co has signed a letter of intent to invest in the terminal as foreign shipping companies and port operators have been invited to put money into the terminal with interest being highest from China, he said by telephone.

Kaohsiung Harbour in Kaohsiung, southern Taiwan, is the island's largest port and was the world's third-largest container port in the early 1990s.

Its world ranking has slipped since then, falling to number eight in 2007 and 12th in 2008, because of the expansion of foreign ports and Taiwan's six-decade ban on sea links with China. Taiwan, however, opened sea links with China in December.

To boost its competitiveness, the Kaohsiung Harbour began to build the International Container Harbour in January 2008. The latest deep-water terminal is part of that development.

The harbour has five container terminals with a total of 23 wharves - three 16-metre-deep wharves and the rest with an average depth of 14.5 metres. (dpa)