It is one of the best natural harbours of the country which was completed in 1933. It is a well protected deep sea port which can accommodate ships of length up to 195 m and draft of 10.2 m. The inner harbour of the port has 8 quay berths, an oil wharf consisting of 2 berths, one mechanised ferti­lizer berth, 3 jetty berths and I mooring berth.

It can accommodate 15 ships alongside and has special arrangement for expeditious handling of iron ore, manganese ore and pig iron. The outer habour has an iron ore berth jetty. In order to accommodate grow­ing traffic 11 new berths (6 on northern side and 5 on southern side) are proposed to be constructed.

The hinterland of Vishakhapatnam commands an area of 340,600 sq. km in Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh-Madhya Pradesh and Orissa which is rich in agricultural produce, minerals ores and shel­tering new industries. Vishakhapatnam port ranked second in India during 1997-98 in respect of cargo traffic the volume of traffic is expected to reach to 45 million tons by 2002 and 140 million tons by 2020 AD. Its main imports are petroleum, fertilizers, chemicals, machinery and metals while iron ore, timber, leather goods-and food grains are the princi­pal items of export.