Featured
Featured
Featured
Achieving full and effective corporatization of port authorities: reform models from global experience
Most countries are reluctant to entirely privatize their port authorities, making port corporatization the model of choice. Today, the most commonly pursued route for port governance reform embraces the concept of an autonomous, government-owned port authority with terminal operations under private companies. Many countries fall short of fully e ective corporatization of their port authorities, however, because they retain some administrative and decision-making mechanisms under government control. PortEconomics co-director Peter de...
Featured
PORTOPIA: final event to shed a light on the future of port performance
The PORTOPIA partners - including several PortEconomics members - are happy to present the outcome of the project and to shed a light on future developments during the Final Event that will take place on November 9, 2017 in the BNP Paribas Fortis Auditorium Marais in Brussels (Belgium). This event must be seen as a milestone in the data digitalisation agenda of the European port sector. Within the framework of the PORTOPIA project, a European consortium of academics, IT experts and port professionals has been working for four years on the...
Featured
The Analyst: geopolitics and port development
By Peter de Langen Port development often has an important geopolitical dimension This dimension came to the fore recently with the news of the new agreement struck between China Merchants Port Holdings Company and the government of Sri Lanka on the Hambantota port development project in a remote part of Sri Lanka. The project was financed with a Chinese government loan, but so far has not attracted sufficient business to be profitable. This was not completely unexpected: the local cargo base is very small and thus the business...
Featured
PortGraphic | Top 15 European container ports: 1st half 2017 growth
By Theo Notteboom The table shows the top 15 container ports in the European Union in 2016 based on container throughput expressed in TEU and the year-on-year growth in H1 2017 (for some ports Q1 2017). No figures were available for Marsaxlokk. What do the figures reveal? With an overall growth figure of 3.7%, the top 15 ports are performing much better than in 2016 First, with an overall growth figure of 3.7%, the top 15 ports are performing much better than in 2016 (+2.1%) and 2015 (-1.6%). The top three recorded a...
Featured
PortReport 2 | Caribbean container port catchment areas: 1998-2016 evolution and the risk of over-investment
Download PortReport No 2- Caribbean container port catchment areas: 1998-2016 evolution and the risk of over-investment Almost from its inception, there has been a clear upward trend in the disruptive force of the container during its use. However, a relative decrease in container movement has been seen in recent years although the explanation of which goes beyond disturbances in the world economy. PortEconomics member Ricardo Sanchez along with Eliana Barleta notice that the inter-annual change in throughput with respect to changes in GDP...
Featured
Strategy formulation of new generation ports: the Hong-Kong case
In 1992, UNCTAD outlined a three-generation model to classify different stages that the port industry has experienced. It illustrates that port evolution is not a linear progress but periodically with key events to re-start every stage. An important research question emerges on whether the port industry has involved to the new generation or not after more than two decades of development. To provide useful insight into this research question, PortEconomics member Adolf Ng along with Kennth H. Wong (Hutchison Port Holdings, Hong Kong,...
Featured
Unveiling configurations of shipping clusters: challenges and opportunities in the case of Piraeus
Clustering provides significant added value to companies belonging to it, well verified in practice and in literature. Informally, at least, shipping clusters exist in many cities (i.e. Singapore), some developed around a port with obscure boundaries. Such a case is the Piraeus in Greece, relying heavily on the Greek shipping companies, principal merchant fleet owners globally in terms of tonnage, located in the area in and around Piraeus. Despite the volume and importance of the shipping companies, the presence, though, of a shipping...
Featured
Measuring the missing link in port performance evaluation
Port performance measurement is continuously gaining ground in contemporary port management. Intense competition and the progressive metamorphosis of port authorities’ idiosyncrasies towards more commercialised and industrialised entities have been vital: ports, in their vast majority, are actively engaged in the complex supply chains aiming, among others, to increase market shares. In this setting, the importance of port performance measurement emerged as a necessary condition for ports in order to benchmark their business vis-a-vis...
Featured