The requirements of agile pricing policies to build a competitive maritime sector: reflections on the Egyptian ports

Abstract

The strong growth of world merchandise trade recorded the highest in 2017. This was the strongest indicator within a period of six years carrying a ratio of 1.5% which is far above 1.0 the ratio following 2018 financial crisis. The period up to 2023 carries positive prospects for short and medium term and will yield to a growth of global GDP by more than 3.0. This paper is coming in the light of the two decrees that had been issued by the Egyptian Government #800 for the year 2016, and #488 for the year 2016 which had set the different pricing for the different services for the port users. The question arising and addressed in the review across the research study sheds the light on the inability of the Egyptian Economy to hunt the opportunities of this GDP growth and the increase of global sea born trade. The weakness that stands as an umbrella hindering Egyptian ports to carry on these positive forecasts is the non- agile policy setup of their pricing systems. On the academic level, the paper tries to study about the competition and how the pricing system in ports to be determined worldwide. The paper in hand, tried conceptually through review to present a typology accounting for the challenges that face the Egyptian ports in setting competitive pricing system and it allows the venue for more empirical studies in this direction focusing on comparative in depth analysis of specific ports that could be studied in the future to extend the research in this field. Moreover, it presents a qualitative primary researched plan that will tackle the leakages for the Egyptian Ports’ services in building a competitive edge reflecting the challenges they face in their rigid pricing strategies. Such rigidity in terms of price setting has decreased intra-port competition as well as inter-port competition between different terminals and among firms performing in the port and it reduced the transit- shipment activities at some ports.