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Vicious competition and price wars have impacted the co-operation between ports in the Yangtze River Delta, leading to overlaps in the development of services and a wasting of resources.
The vice-president of the Shanghai Shipping Exchange, Li Gang, told the China Ports and Terminals Summit in Tianjin there was no clear responsibility between the ports in the booming region.
"There is a lot of overlap in investment and in similar facilities, and little synergy between ports. There is development but it is not rational," he said.
But co-ordinating the development is proving difficult, and reflected a problem found in many mainland industry sectors. The ports in the YRD all belong to different cities and provinces, Li said, and there was no consistent policy guideline across the region.
The rivalry between Shanghai and Ningbo has been well documented. Ningbo has a natural deep-water port but Beijing wanted Shanghai to become the nation's maritime shipping centre, so Yangshan received the green light.
However, GHK Consultants president Jamie Simpson said if a rivalry between Shanghai and Ningbo still existed, "it was only in the minds of political leaders". "Maybe it was better to expand Ningbo's facilities rather than build Yangshan back then, but that argument is long over," he said.
Li said there were many network issues in the YRD. Feeder and main line ports were not connected, and connections were poor in the river transport system.
"The ports in the YRD should have their own characteristics that distinguish them from other ports in the region. We must make better use of river and road transport and they need to be co-ordinated. Sea and rail transport must be used more efficiently to upgrade Shanghai and Ningo so a strong logistics network can exist across the YRD."
Li said the YRD ports were playing a vital role in the mainland's container development, with 2006 throughput expanding at 25.4 percent to more than 33 million TEUs. China handled a total of 93 million boxes last year.
He predicted that the 2007 throughput of ports in the Yangtze River Delta would reach 41 million TEUs.
"China's economy will depend heavily on this growth at the delta, which will in turn support and stimulate the growth in western and middle China," Li said.
Port authorities will be taking different approaches to developing the YRD ports. Officials will co-ordinate investment at each port and ensure decisions to expand are "rational". They will also attempt to establish a coherent logistics network in the region, possibly through segmenting the market with ports concentrating on individual strengths. The strength of inland ports will also have to be built up, Li said. |
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