Analysis Of Port Logistics' Contribution To Urban Economic Growth

Along with the accelerated process of economic globalization, the foreign trade between countries or regions have become more and more frequently and importantly. The development of foreign trade has improved the request of the integrative transportation especially the ocean transports. The ports as terminals of waterborne transportation are playing an extremely important role in the communication and transportation network. And they are the starting points and destinations between sea transport, land transport and railway transport etc. Throughout the logistics chain, ports bear the largest share of freight transport and provide the cheapest transport conditions. International logistics is basically relying on port logistics to complete.With the development of the economy, the functions of the port are changing constantly, and the port-related services are also developed. The port is not only as a transshipment place to load and unload cargo, but also as an integrated logistics platform and goods distribution center. Along with the port logistics becoming more and more important in the economic activities, the benefits brought by the port logistics is reflected not only in the port itself, but also in the economy of the port city and its surrounding areas on the leading role. It has played a decisive role in promoting the regional economy, international trade, national economy, and optimizing the industrial structure.Therefore, it is necessary to learn something from the international experience of their development through looking back on the evolution of European ports and the history of economic development. And on this basis, we conduct an empirical analysis as an example of the five port cities selected from coastal areas of China in order to have a further research on the mechanism of port logistics to urban economic growth.The paper is divided into six parts. Part 1 is the introduction. It mainly explained the research background, purpose, methodology and the main content of this paper. Part 2 mainly introduces the concepts, development conditions, characteristics and the related theories of port logistics and economic growth as a basis of analyzing the relationship between them. Part 3 of international experience is mainly the historical review on the evolution of European ports and economic development. It attempts to explore the contributions of the port logistics to the city's economic growth. Part 4 is mainly empirical analysis. In this part, through the use of econometric methods it analyzes the relationship between GDP and port throughput of the goods by using Eviews software, and makes a further interpretation of the relationship between them. Part 5 is the case study, it mainly studies the relationship between port logistics and economic development in Qingdao. Part 6 is the last part, it includes the full text summary, the creativities of research paper and the remaining deficiencies in the process of study. The first, second and third parts are the main contents of the paper, and they are also the creativities of the paper.Ultimately, it draws the following conclusions:In the long history of development, the initial formation of port is dues to the appropriateness of its location; and the initial growth of port logistics is the main driving force to economic development of a city; but the development of urban economy or regional economy (including technical factors) will further stimulate the growth of logistics.In the short term, the relationship between port logistics and urban economic growth will needs specific analysis according to the actual conditions.