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The future of green corridors in Latin America: potential and obstacles
By Ricardo J. Sánchez and María Alejandra Gomez-Paz The lack of a satisfactory logistics infrastructure, along with certain institutional weaknesses, the arising of disruptions in logistics services, and not least of all, the onset of shortcomings regarding regional integration all coalesce to depict a development lag in key aspects of the Latin American region. There is, nonetheless, a short-term opportunity scenario for the promotion, boosting, and sustaining of a transformation process towards new, sustainable, and powerful...
PortStudies
The Red Sea Crisis: ramifications for vessel operations, shipping networks, and maritime supply chains
PortEconomics member Theo Notteboom joins Hercules Haralambides and Kevin Cullinane in their latest editorial for the scholarly journal Maritime Economics and Logistics, which addresses the Red Sea Crisis and its major disruption affecting the dynamics of ports shipping and related maritime supply chains. The attack of Hamas on Israel on October 7, 2023, and the military response of the latter in Gaza have made news headlines for much of the last quarter of 2023 and early 2024. The international community has attempted to prevent the...
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Ranking 2023 of Latin American container ports and terminals: the "seesaw" game
By Ricardo J. Sánchez & Eliana P. Barleta Why the ranking? Although sometimes different numbers are used, it is known that maritime transport accounts for around 80% of world trade in goods in terms of volume and 70% of its value. Latin America represents approximately 7% of this sum, with a high component of raw materials of mineral and vegetable origin, and foodstuffs of all kinds. The international trade of the region is directly connected to the three main world maritime routes: Europe, North America and Asia,...
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Competition effects of vertical integration in container ports: assessing the European Commission decisional practice
Container liner shipping companies started expanding their business by investing in container port terminals in the late 1990s. This market entry results in an extensive presence of vertically integrated liners and terminals. A recenty study explores the competition effects of this vertical integration trend based on a regional (European) analysis. In particular, it extracts lessons from the European Commission cases on the competition effects of vertical integration. The critical analysis of the cases examined at the institutional level...
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Big news: the restructuring of liner shipping alliances
Big news from the container shipping market, and this time not related to the Red Sea Crisis. Hapag-Lloyd will leave THE Alliance and start a partnership with Maersk under the name 'Gemini Cooperation' from February 2025 onward, immediately after the conclusion of our current 2M Alliance. Their new network will cover 7 trades: Asia / US West Coast, Asia / US East Coast, Asia / Middle East, Asia / Mediterranean, Asia / North Europe, Middle East – India / Europe and Transatlantic. The Network will comprise of 26 mainline...
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Advancing public interests through state ownership; the case of Port of Rotterdam
PortEconomics member Peter de Langen in his latest portstudy addresses the effects of state ownership on the decisions of port development companies through a case study of the Port of Rotterdam (PoR). This issue is relevant, given the economic impact of port development and the important role of ports in the transition towards a more sustainable economy. The insights from this case study thus can be useful for shaping port (governance) reform. The paper reviews the rationale for state ownership of the port development company, and...
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International freight transport: exports no longer China’s Achilles heel
In the anniversary magazine ’10 years of Flows’, PortEconomics member Theo Notteboom highlights trade between the West and China in an interview with Flow's editor-in-chief Koen Dejaeger. These flows of goods form the backbone of container traffic in the world today. How did they originate, and how will they evolve as geopolitical tensions mount? The role China has played in the development of international freight transport cannot be overstated. Today, the geopolitical power blocs are increasingly opposing each other; a tense...
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The role of seaports and the contemporary challenges they face
By Michael Dooms and George Vaggelas, Seaports constitute safe places for ships to anchor and are used for the sea transportation of commodities and people between regions of the world. The COVID19 pandemic increased the public awareness of their importance, as essential nodes or transport interfaces connecting global regions and facilitating trade. Ports are providing mainly the following four groups of activities: They can be transit hubs facilitating cargoes (and in some cases passengers) destined to port’s hinterland and vice...
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