Abstract
Traditionally, ports have been regarded as hubs responsible for the reception of ships and passengers, but nowadays they have a much wider economic function, being clusters of various activities directly or indirectly linked to maritime transportation and seaborne trade, among which container traffic is the most important segment. The Port of Rijeka as the largest Croatian cargo port, positioned in the North Adriatic Sea, has exceptional but not fully exploited opportunities for further economic development of importance not just for the port and the city but for the Republic of Croatia as well. In addition, its geostrategic position makes it an important international port for Central and South Eastern European countries. The aim of this paper is to investigate and identify the current position of the Port of Rijeka (hereinafter Rijeka) in relation to the container business and, using Benchmarking as the research method, to analyse the established five main factors that have to be taken into consideration where its efficiency is compared to the statistically proven “best container port” in the region – the Port of Koper (hereinafter Koper). The results show significant competitive advantages of the Port of Koper almost in any of the analysed factors. Therefore, recommendations are given for further actions and improvement according to the natural advantages that Rijeka has to utilize in order to enhance its competitiveness and overall performance.
Highlights
Seaports have been traditionally regarded as hubs through which passenger and cargo transfers between ships and coasts take place
The aim of this paper is to investigate and identify the current position of the Port of Rijeka in relation to the container business and, using Benchmarking as the research method, to analyse the established five main factors that have to be taken into consideration where its efficiency is compared to the statistically proven “best container port” in the region – the Port of Koper
In order to analyse the current position of the Port of Rijeka container business and to establish the factors that have to be taken into consideration in future improvement actions, we used Benchmarking as the research method
Summary
Seaports have been traditionally regarded as hubs through which passenger and cargo transfers between ships and coasts take place They “have evolved from the classic role of being predominantly responsible for the reception of ships (loading and unloading, storage and transport of goods) to a more comprehensive entity of functional and spatial clusters of activities which are directly or indirectly linked to maritime transportation” Ports as economic units have evolved significantly They have become heterogeneous structures, clusters of numerous activities, each of them contributing at their respective different level to port performance while at the same time, directly or indirectly, affecting changes in the strategic po-.
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