Research On China’s Port Industrial Cluster

After more than30years’ reform and openning up, China’s port and economyhave developed rapidly and made remarkable achievements synchronously. However,following the periodical recession of global economy, China’s port is facing newchallenges. So far, the development of ports should adapt to the development trend ofshipping industry, change the past pattern of depending on a large scale investment todrive the growth of throughput, and accelerate the process of structure optimizationand resource integration to strengthen the agglomeration function of supply chain.Based on this, to discuss on how China’s port industry makes its transition from a lowlevel of industrial agglomeration to an industry cluster with high division andcooperation, which has great significance.The whole paper is divided into five sections.The first section is the basis for the subject, which describes mainly on researchbackground, significance, ideas, and frameworks. First of all, nowadays, the former"bottleneck" of port has been no longer in existence after a large-scale investment andconstruction and rapid development. Port capacity of supply and demand becomesoverall balanced with the tendency of structural and regional surplus. Under such acircumstance, it is particularly necessary to explore the way of integrating regionalport resources, innovating port development patterns and promoting transformationand upgrading of the ports. The main innovation of this paper lies in four aspects,including the knowledge of the port industrial cluster research at home and abroad, aset of port industrial cluster development patterns and implementation paths whichare in line with the driving of market and government.The second section is the relevant theory and literature review. To begin with,the basic theory of industrial cluster will be analyzed from four aspects, including theconcept and characteristics of industrial cluster, the classification of industrialagglomeration, the level and structure of the industrial cluster and the drivers ofgrowth and development of industrial cluster theory. Industrial cluster is a geographical phenomenon in the process of industrial development. It refers to manybehavior subjects like enterprises, institutions, and organizations with relations ofdivision and cooperation. They concentrate in a specific industry of a certainparticular area, comprise a spatial aggregation which is tightly connected by theircrisscrossed network relations, and form a cooperative relationship with a completestructure with upstream and downstream and a system with related supportingindustries. It represents a new form of spatial economic organization between themarket and hierarchy. The core of the industrial cluster is the complementaryrelationship between the enterprise and society as well as the business to business.This relationship is not only beneficial to gain the economies of scale, but alsorelatively more flexible. And it has accelerated the realization of the innovationprocess by interactive learning. On the basis of defining the related concepts, itexpounds the basic views of various schools of the industrial cluster, as well asreviews and summarizes the relevant literature of industrial cluster at home andabroad. Further more, based on the characteristics of industrial cluster in the PearlRiver Delta,three kinds of cluster patterns is stated. The first one is the pattern ofspecialized town, which is mainly formed by the production of specialized productsand service. The second one is the pattern of holistic transition along the internationalcommodity chains, which plays an important part in improving the investmentenvironment to attract capitals by the local government. And the third one is theformation of innovation network by the enterprise which is driven by innovation,mainly in the field of new and high technology industries. At last, foreign portmanagement mode and landlord port management mode have been discussed. Thecurrent management modes of ports around the world can be roughly divided intothree types: run jointly by government agencies or state-owned enterprises andprivate enterprises, run by government agencies or state-owned enterprise, and run byprivate enterprises.The third section is analyzing the problems on the development of China’s portindustrial cluster. Firstly, the development of the port economy deeply depends onport industry, and there is a close relationship between them. With the development ofsocial economy, the modern port industry no longer gives priority to basic industries, but becomes increasingly diversified, gradually radiates to the surrounding areas, andpromotes the development of modern logistics industry, harbor industry and so on.Then the formation of a huge port cluster becomes an important industrial support ofthe port economy. The formation of the port industry cluster is mainly affected byregional superiority, industry foundation and macroscopic economic policy, etc. Theprimary characters of the port industrial cluster are the port dependence on location,the ecological symbiotic among port industries and industrial extroversion. Currently,the development trend of port industry in our country mainly presents as two aspectsbelow. Firstly, it is extremely hard to achieve a leaping development for most of portcities. Therefore, a lot of ports will stay in the initial phase of the port industryeconomic development, with the pillar industry is port large-scale industrial clusterand the ancillary industry is sea transportation service. Secondly, under thecircumstance that most of ports are lingering, a few of large ports start the upgradingand transformation from port industrial cluster to port service cluster with adevelopment trend of the industry and the service developed in parallel withoutinterference. The development center is gradually adjusting to the sea transportationservice and the industry structure tends to be high-end and service-oriented. In termsof the development pattern, the port industrial cluster pays more importance to theextention of industrial chain, the development of affiliated industry and thecomplementary with the urban economy. When it comes to the analysis on thecharacter and the development trend in the future, main problems in the developmentare pointed out: first, the enterprise internet in some of port industry cluster isinsufficient; second,, the organizational foundation in parts of industry is unstable;third, the port industrial cluster is relatively closed, which affected the efficiency ofresource allocation; fourthly, the excessive emphasis on the driving force of leadingenterprises will cause the rigidity; fifthly, the over-reliance on the superior resourceswill reduce the flexibility of port industry cluster; sixthly, the internal trust of portindustry cluster will raise the financial risk.The fourth section is experience learning of some industry clusters on theadvanced ports at home and abroad. This chapter analyzed the success of industryclusters on the ports at home and abroad according to industry clusters on European ports of London, Rotterdam. and on Singaporean ports. European shipping and thehistorical accumulation of port resources shows their dependence on routes. Europeanports have formed a regulation and generated monopolistic products that serve for thewhole world’s shipping markets by the outer motivation of the innovation of nationalpolicies and enterprises. The main experience of the development of industry clusterson London ports is achieving the sustainable development of modern port industries,depending on the transformation and upgrading of industries; perfecting the relevantpolicies for port construction, setting up a more open port environment; constrictingshipping service clusters by the shipping centers and the effect of industryconcentration; carrying out flexible port management, which is beneficial to improvethe efficiency of ports. The main experience of the development of industry clusterson Rotterdam is that the free trade policy provides a loose development environmentfor port industry clusters; reasonable planning of industrial park guarantees portindustry clusters; the strong economic hinterlands promote the development of portindustry clusters; the diversifying, multifunctional and multi-layered development ofindustry clusters; strong industry relevance; the advantages of the internal industriallinkage of industry clusters are fully used, to form a co-existence mechanism amongindustries. The main experience of the development of industry clusters onSingaporean ports is reforming port management, reducing trade cost of industryclusters; setting up a policy environment for the development of industry clustersneeds; the reasonable planning and policies of the government support and promotethe development of port industry clusters; insisting on the priority principle ofenvironmental protection; insisting on the sustainable development of industries;forcing on the development and introduction of talents, emphasizing that technicalapplication and innovation promote industry clusters. Meanwhile, the mainexperience of the development of port industry clusters in Yangtze River Delta is thesuperior natural resources of industry clusters in Yangtze River Delta; the strongeconomic hinterlands support the development of port industry clusters in YangtzeRiver Delta; the reasonable planning and policies of the government; the constructionof information industries on the ports is in the first place in order to accelerate portindustry clusters; transforming the mode of industry clusters, accelerating the port structural adjustment; enhancing the cooperation in the area, realizing the advantagesof resource integration, strengthening industrial relevance. Through introducing theexperience of above ports to provide reference for the development of China’s portindustrial cluster including the port industry clusters in Pearl River Delta.The fifth section is the development aims and strategy proposals for China’sport industrial cluster. On the basis of learning the development experience of theadvanced port industry clusters at home and abroad, this section explores the aim anddevelopment pattern of port industry clusters in our country and discuss the concreteimplementation strategy. First, the vision of the port industry clusters in China is torealize internal industrial cluster in a single port as well as to promote regionalindustry clusters in port clusters. On the one hand, to have advanced portmanagement, improved marketing competition system in order to achieve internalindustry clusters in a single port; On the other hand, to promote regional industryclusters in port clusters needs to build up an multi-layered macro-control system thatcan effectively break through the restrict of districts and resolve regional division ofprofit, in the perspective of regional development. Second, to achieve high-level portindustry clusters depends on a series of important factors, including advanced portmanagement, fine market competition environment, perfect shared infranstructurefacilities, integrated information shared system, firm enterprise credit relationship,all-around port service system, active technical innovation environment,multi-layered macro-control system, unified planning and design, resource integrationsystem among ports, etc.. Besides, the key is to find a development pattern for portindustry clusters suits China’s situations, establish a practical system arrangementframe and carrying it out designedly and systematically. Third, a development patternfor port industry clusters suits China’s situations needs either a top-down marketintegration or the top-down promotion from the government. The main aim of thedown-top market integration is to increase the market competition activeness and thetechnical innovation motivation, deepen the farm-out among enterprises and improvethe industry relevance, promote the accerelared agglomeration of enterprises andform a pattern of port industry clusters in which competition and cooperation coexistin the range of a single port. The main aim of the top-down promotion from the government is to coordinate the planning of each port, optimize regional divisionsystem, promote element and resource optimum allocation among ports, and achievemulti-layered and differential development with different type and differentproportion of ports within regions. Finally, this development pattern for port industryclusters with double promotion from market and the government needs a set ofcomplete and practical strategies on the basis of setting up an improved andwholesome system arrangement frame. Through seting up the research path ofstrategy pattern for port industry clusters to prove the feasibility of strategies, the keyis to consider the situations, draw strategies according to the market development,promote market resource allocation and achieve port industry clusters in line with thechange of competition and its trend.