Change of Shipping Industry Circumstances and Shipping Policy Directions of Developing and Developed Countries

Abstract

Shipping industry development circumstances are different from one another according to the economic development phase of each country. These differences also extend to the objectives and issues of shipping industry policies of these countries. In this study, we tried to figure out the desirable policy directions for each country in the different phases of economic development. The countries in the early stage of economic development may need to establish their own fleet to meet the rapidly increasing shipping demands. The countries with their own fleet may be more interested in sustaining it. The type of shipping industry policies evolves from the ‘policy to induce’ to the ‘policy to resist’ accordingly. In the late 1990's, shippers’ demand for integrated supply chain services increased as the supply chain management system was widely introduced among them. Competitive advantage of shipping companies is to be determined by their ability to provide such an integrated service since then. Major advanced countries seek to devise an ‘adaptive policy’ to allocate resources to the newly arising opportunity.