Shanghai Port Container Transport Competitiveness

With its aim to become the international shipping center, Shanghai has selected the Yangshan Islands as the site for its deep-draft terminal. However, the other ports near it have all put forward their own objectives to become the hub port in East Asia. Owing to the fact that there can only be one container hub port within a certain region, once one port become the hub port, others can only serve as the feeder ports, whether Shanghai can win the competition is of vital importance to its long-term interest. This research was carried out under this background.This research first discussed the general competition theories and relevant evaluating methods. The subject was defined as the competitive edge analysis of port industry, which was the analysis of the port competitive edge of Shanghai and other ports in the respect of container transport. Then, Shanghai's container transport competitive pattern was analyzed. By adopting the SWOT method, the research carried out the competitive strategy of Shanghai and gave some suggestions.In chapter 3, a complete set of container port competitive edge evaluation index was set up. Divided into three levels, this index evaluated the competitive edge of container ports from four aspects: port's inside condition, port's outside condition, operational and management ability as well as strategic competition and sustained development capability. And the following research will be based on this index.To enable Shanghai to locate its major rivals and focus its attention on the contest with them, in Chapter 4 the Principal Component Analysis and Fuzzy Cluster Analysis were utilized to group Shanghai and other surrounding container ports that may pose threats to it. The result showed that Shanghai, Busan, Kaohsiung and Shenzhen were clustered in the same group and this group can be aimed at becoming the regional container hub port.Finally, in order to find the competitive position of Shanghai among the four ports, the Fuzzy Comprehensive Judgment Method was employed to rank them according to their comprehensive competitive edge. The result was: Busan had the strongest competitive edge among the four; Shanghai came after it, Shenzhen thirdand Kaohsiung last. From the comparison and analysis of the data, it can be concluded that Shanghai's strengths consist in its large and active hinterland and the low labor cost, while its weaknesses lie in its water depth and terminal throughput capacity as well as the low transshipment rate. But on the whole, Shanghai has a strong competitive edge and with the completion of the Yangshan Deep-draft Terminal, Shanghai has a full chance and ability to become the international shipping center.In the end, some suggestions to enhance Shanghai's competitive edge were raised.