Improve Port Connectivity

As discussed in earlier story, LSCI (Liner Shipping Container Index) shows how good the level of connectivity of ports in each countries. This is one of many indicators that shows port competitiveness. Improving port’s connectivity has never been this important than before.

Port’s Connectivity Illustration (Source: https://transportgeography.org/)

Quoted from Container ports: the fastest, the busiest, and the best connected (Jan Hoffmann, 2019), the following seven policy measures are key to enhancing port connectivity:

1. Go digital. Digital and physical connectivity go hand in hand. Just as trade benefits from the latest technologies such as artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things and blockchain, port and shipping operations would also benefit from taping the opportunities arising from digitalization.
2. Link domestic, regional and global networks. Restrictions affecting regional or domestic cabotage markets limit the ability of shipping lines to consolidate cargo. Allowing international lines to also carry domestic trade and feedering cargo can enhance both the competitiveness of the port and shippers’ access to overseas markets.
3. Ensure competition. Considered prior analysis is required before assigning port concessions to terminal operators who are associated with shipping lines through vertical integration. On the one hand, such operators can attract port calls from associated lines and alliances. On the other, however, such vertical integration could discourage other lines from calling at the port and could limit choices available to shippers.
4. Port modernization. Port clients, i.e. the shipping lines and the traders, require fast, reliable and cost-efficient services to ships and cargo. Ports need to continuously invest in their technological, institutional and human capacities. Public and private cooperation is key in this regard.
5. Widen the hinterland. Ports should aim at attracting cargo from neighbouring countries and domestic production centres. There is a common interest between many seaports and traders in neighbouring countries, especially landlocked countries. Investments in corridors, regional trucking markets, and cross-border trade and transit facilitation can help expand ports’ hinterlands.
6. Promote sustainability. Port stakeholders are varied and may include shipping lines and traders, as well as social partners and the port-city community. Stakeholders are increasingly demanding that ports deliver on their social, economic and environmental sustainability obligations.
7. Monitor ports’ connectivity. Policy makers, port authorities and investors need to continuously monitor trends in the global shipping network, the geography of trade, fleet deployment, and port performance. UNCTAD’s Review of Maritime Transport and the complementary online statistical information and country profiles support this monitoring objective.

NDF