Recent Patterns of Competition and Co-operation among Major Container Ports in Asia: An Implication for Busan

Abstract

Seaports are crucial for regional development as they offer an employment to adjacent societies through industrialisation and value-added services. Since Asia has become a manufacturing hub for the world economy with a large volume of exports and imports, this paper investigates the trading pattern of container line services for three major ports in Asia: that is, Shanghai, Singapore and Busan. Ports compete and co-operate with neighbouring ports in the region to generate the greater throughputs and subsequently creat economic values. Utilising the liner services data from AXS Marine’s Alphaliner database, this study proposes an inter-dependency ratio of container ports in a way to understand the degree of co-opetition among the ports from a foreland perspective. The findings suggest that, the Singaporean port generates around 40% of its volume without depending on Shanghai and Busan, while the Busan port relies about 90% on Shanghai and Singapore to generate its volume. The Port of Busan is desperately needed to diversify the liner services/routes portfolio and expand its self-dependency to become a transhipment hub located in the Far East. This paper concludes by identifying several challenges and opportunities for the Port of Busan as a specified example. Big data in maritime industry could provide a plateform for decision support systems to port operators, managers and policy-makers so as to uncover the market’s gaps and needs, thus increasing port market shares and retaining the greater container throughputs.