Thematic Area
Thematic Area
Thematic Area
How dependent are north-european ports on containers?
By Theo Notteboom Discussions on port development, planning and competitiveness often tend to revolve around container flows. Quite a few ports around the world have developed some kind of 'container fetish', implying they have developed a very strong focus on container throughput. But how dependent are ports on container traffic? The infographic shows the evolution in some of the main north-European container ports. Three dimensions are presented. The vertical axis shows the container dependency or the share of container throughput in the...
Thematic Area
How dependent are west-med ports on containers?
By Theo Notteboom In last week's infographic, Theo Notteboom analysed the container dependency of major North-European ports. But how is the situation in southern Europe? How dependent are West-Mediterranean ports on container traffic? As before, there are three dimensions in the infographic. The vertical axis shows the container dependency or the share of container throughput in the total throughput of the port. The horizontal axis depicts the degree of containerization or the share of containerized cargo in the total general cargo...
Thematic Area
European port policy at a crossroads
Fourteen years since its first attempt, the EU is still searching for a European port policy able to increase the competitiveness of European ports. PortEconomics members Thanos Pallis and George Vaggelas in their article at "Naftika Chronika" magazine argue that market access to port services is no longer the "Holy Grail" for the EU's port industry and institutions or at least is not the only one. EU has adopted a more flexible approach towards liberalisation of market access exempting the most controversial cargo handling and passenger...
Thematic Area
Profiling global container ports
By Jean-Paul Rodrigue Container ports are reflective of the world's commercial geography particularly since they dominantly handle finished and intermediate goods. Commodities are becoming more prevalent, but still remain a niche market. The map below shows container volumes in 2012 for ports above half a million TEU. Surprisingly, there is no publicly available dataset covering the traffic of container ports around the world. Some regional or national trade groups publish figures, but this data is only for an area and tends to be...
Thematic Area
The disadvantages of scale in maritime shipping
By Jean-Paul Rodrigue Maritime shipping, more than any other form of transportation, benefits from economies of scale since they have a direct impact on its operational costs. There has thus been a tendency to deploy larger ships, particularly in container shipping, to service high volume trade routes such as between Asia and Europe. PortEconomics member Jean-Paul Rodrigue comments: A common issue with the application of economies of scale is that the maritime shipping company is internalizing its benefits since they have a positive...
Thematic Area
European Maritime Day 2015 in Athens: PortEconomics participating in the debate
More than 1.000 stakeholders and experts on the Blue economy gathered in Athens on 28th and 29th of May to discuss the future of Blue growth. PortEconomics member Michaël Dooms was invited in a high-level panel to share his views on the general theme "Ports: innovation hubs of the Blue Economy" along with Mr. Rémi Mayet from the European Commission, DG MOVE, Antonio Revedin, Director Strategic Planning and Development of the Venice Port Authority, Mr. Adam Banaszak, Member of the Committee of the Regions, and mr. Petros Kokkalis, Council...
Thematic Area
OECD report on the state of the art of the cruise industry & cruise ports
The OECD International Transport Forum (ITF) brings cruise and cruise ports at the centre of discussions during the 2015 ITF/OECD Summit on "Transport, Tourism and Trade", with PortEconomics co-director Thanos Pallis preparing the background discussion Paper to inform the high-level discussions that took place during the summit. Thanos contributes with a report covering the state of the art and growth potential of cruise shipping (Chapter 1), the characteristics, performance and competition of modern cruise ports (Chapter 2), and the...
Thematic Area
Different speeds in regional container growth in China
By Theo Notteboom Only 25 years ago, the container port system in mainland China was still in its infancy stage. During that time, Hong Kong acted as the only container gateway to China and Taiwanese ports Kaohsiung and Keelung benefited from Taiwan's economic success story in international trade. In May 1980, the Chinese government established the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone, the first special economic zone in China. By the late 1980s, mainland Chinese ports in the Pearl River Delta saw the first fruits of this opening up policy. Growth...
Thematic Area