10. Global Economic Competition, Shipping and Intermodal Transport
What has been said so far, particularly in the last few sections,
points to several key elements regarding the central argument:
- the "internationalization" or "globalization"
of shipping markets and the competition therein. This global
competition is distinct from the international nature which has
always been attributed to shipping markets in that it takes place
in real time, with instantaneous information and orders throughout
the world economy, whereas the international competition in shipping
markets consisted of effects and impulses conveyed over time from
one area of traffic to another as a consequence of the information
obtained regarding the supply and demand positions of holds in
the different areas, from the advent of the telephone until the
time of the telex;
- in the context of this global competition, the acquisition
of the control and direction of traffic and the logistical arrangement
of the transport cycle become more and more important;
- also in the shipping sector, global competition does not take
place between individual productive units but between rival economic
systems with a territorial basis. Therefore, in the specific
case in question, the competition is between port areas and regions
on the one hand, and "routes" of international importance
on the other;
- the solidity of shipping or port-based economic systems with
a territorial basis is determined by the efficiency, cost effectiveness
and organization of the port complexes - see the discussion in
section 3 above regarding port efficiency and organization - by
the local transport and that connecting the hinterland, by the
information and training systems, by the informal reporting networks
of enterprises intended to stimulate innovation, by the cooperation
between public and private sectors in implementing infrastructural
and territorial plans, by the advanced professionalism, by the
services of the advanced tertiary sector in the shipping world,
by the logistics - in short, by the level of facilities offered
by the shipping centres.
Ultimately, global economic competition in the shipping sector
in general and that of container and intermodal transport in particular
boils down to the comparison between shipping centres and between
metropolitan shipping and port areas.
Index
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