A Study on the Classification of Chinese Major Ports based on Competitiveness Level

Abstract

Since the beginning of open-door policy, China has been making rapid annual growth with an average 10% economic development. And due to this rapid growth, cargo volumes via ports have been also rapidly increased, and accordingly, current China government has intensively invested in port development. Further, this development project is significantly big scale, compared with those project which Korea and Japan have. Thus, China is beginning to threaten Korean ports, especially Busan port which try to be a hub port in Northeast Asia. For this reason, it has been very important issue for Korea and Busan port to investigate or analyze Chinese ports based on empirical data. Especially, although various studies related to Shanghai and Hong Kong have been conducted, the competitiveness of overall Chinese major ports has been little studied. In this paper, we analyzed competitiveness level of eight Chinese ports with capabilities as container terminal, based on reliable sources. From data analysis, eight Chinese ports were classified into four groups according to competitiveness level. Rankings among four clusters based on competitiveness level are cluster(Hone Kong), cluster C(Shanghai), cluster A(Qingdao, Tianjin, and Yantian) and cluster D(Dalian, Shekou, and Xiamen).