Abstract
The international trade of commodities is crucial for the economic development of any nation or region. Over 80% of the international trade of commodities takes place through ships. Hence seaports serve as the gateway to the development of any country. Since Asia is the world's manufacturing hub, this chapter investigates the trading pattern of container line services for three major ports in Asia: Busan, Singapore, and Shanghai. As container lines provide services in closed loops, multiple ports are called during the services. Additionally, ports compete for common market share as there are overlaps in ports’ hinterland and foreland market. Understanding the existence of co-operation and competition between ports (Song Journal of Transport Geography 10: 99–110, 2002), this study proposes a simple port intra-dependency ratio to measure the degree (or percentage) of which a particular port depends on reference port(s) in the neighbourhood. The study utilizes the automatic identification system (AIS) and liner services data from AXS Marine’s Alphaliner for the analysis. Results suggest that the Port of Shanghai generates almost 26% of its volume without depending on Busan or Singapore port. Singapore port gets almost 40% of the liner capacity without depending on Busan and Shanghai, while Busan port generates only 11% liner capacity on its own, that is, without relying on Singapore and Shanghai. This indicates that the Port of Busan is heavily dependent on Singapore and Shanghai port for its container services, increasing its risk profile. Busan needs to diversify the liner services/routes portfolio and expand its self-dependency to become the transhipment hub in the Far East region. This study concludes by identifying some challenges and opportunities for the Port of Busan as a case study. Big data in maritime can act as a decision support system for port managers and policymakers to uncover the market's gaps and needs, thus increasing the port market share and retaining the high container throughput.
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Notes
- 1.
FEU is one of the standard size of container box used in the Asia—North America trade.
- 2.
The ports are sometimes referred by their city names in the texts for easier reading experience; for example as Busan instead of Port of Busan or Busan port.
- 3.
The following link presents interesting racing bar chart of top importing and exporting countries of the world since 1992 along with top trade surplur and deficit countries: https://youtu.be/9YpwzM4DShQ.
- 4.
In 2019, the container throughput for Hong Kong port declined by 6.5%.
- 5.
Currently, 7 out of top 10 container ports are in China.
- 6.
Please note: TEU does not refer to the actual weekly continer turnover volume (loaded and unloaded) of the port, rather the cumulative 20-foot equivalent container space in fully cellular ships calling the port on a weekly basis. The actual volume of container turnover is only available to the ports and terminals which is not shared with other. Further, as the study considers the ratio, rather than the absolute value, the cumulative volume of container space can reflect the dependence of ports.
- 7.
The container liner services for October 2020 is used; the results might be different at a different period of time.
- 8.
Exclusively here refers to the liner services which are only calling the aforemented port(s) and not with the port(s).
- 9.
The largest here refers to the annual throughput (TEU) of the ports.
- 10.
The following link presents a racing bar chart of top 20 container ports between 1995 and 2018: https://youtu.be/z2jAbU-UYxM.
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Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank AXS Marine for providing access to Alphaliner that offers extensive container trade information, and extending their support to understand the novel database, without which study would not have been possible.
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Sahoo, S. (2021). Liner Services in Asia’s Major Container Ports: Implications for Busan. In: Ko, BW., Song, DW. (eds) New Maritime Business. WMU Studies in Maritime Affairs, vol 10. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-78957-2_9
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