A SECOND cruise-ship terminal will open in April, 2010, enabling the city to cope with a boom of the industry.

More than 30 luxury passenger liners are scheduled to dock in Shanghai this month - a city record - bringing 25,000 visitors to town, Lu Jun, a media coordinator with Shanghai port immigration police said on Thursday.

About 20 percent of cruise ships now have to dock at the mouth of the Yangtze River because they're too big to fit under the Yangpu Bridge over the Huangpu River, forcing tourists to spend up to four hours on buses getting into the city and back to their ships even though they may only have a 12-hour stopover.

The new terminal is closer to town, located at Paotai Bay in Wusong Port, Baoshan District. It will include three berths, the same as Shanghai Port International Cruise Terminal on the North Bund, with a capacity to handle 70,000-ton vessels.

The new terminal will also include ferry services to downtown Shanghai as well as buses.

More than 150,000 foreign and Chinese tourists arrived here on cruise ships last year, 17 percent more than in 2007.

Last year 112 cruise ships stopped in the city, 10 more than in 2007.

According to the port authority, cruise ship arrivals will increase 12 percent this year.

Next year's World Expo is expected to attract even more cruise ships and double the number of visitors arriving in the city on them.

Police also confirmed that construction will be completed next month on the last building at Shanghai Port International Cruise Terminal.