Study On Location Advantages Of The Ports Along The Maritimr Silk Road

The port is the critical node in the Maritime Silk Road.The programmatic documents about the Belt and Road have developed some key cooperation areas,such as promoting the infrastructure construction,promoting cooperation in port construction,and supporting Chinese enterprises to participate in the construction and operation of ports along the route in a variety of ways.The location advantages evaluation of the port along the Maritime Silk Road is of great significance to the rational planning of the port and its hinterland infrastructure,and also plays an important role in the port investment forecast and the Belt and Road initiative promotion.Existing literature has less quantitative research on the port location advantages.This paper begins with an overview of the concepts of the 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road,harbors,and harbor locations value.Then this paper analyzes the formation conditions of the port location,including natural factors,economic and social factors and technological factors.From the perspective of the sea-land combined transportation,this paper comprehensively considers the influence of the road network density of port hinterland,traffic artery,city,strategic shipping hub port and channel,builds the evaluation model of port location advantages to analyze the advantages of important ports along the Maritime Silk Road,then analysis spatial distribution characteristics and pattern using global spatial autocorrelation,standard deviation ellipse and local spatial autocorrelation.This study shows that:1)For the ports along the Maritime Silk Road,their location advantages have a significant discrepancy in different regions,and the distribution pattern presents the characteristics of high-low-high from east to west;2)While the location advantages of ports are similar within a country,the regional difference is obvious.The ports in Southeast Asia have the highest location advantages,followed by Southern Europe to Western Europe,South Asia,North Africa and West Asia.The ports in East African to South Africa regions have the lowest location advantages;3)There are significant regional differences in the influence factors of port location,and the port location advantages are more relevant to the influences of the traffic artery and the city.The results can provide scientific support for the investment and construction process of overseas port infrastructure.4)The spatial distribution shows the agglomeration pattern;the high values are clustered in the Southeast Asia region,and the low values are clustered on the west of the Indian Ocean and the west of the Persian Gulf,and ports in the Southeast Asia region have a Strongly driven.The research results of the port location advantages can provide scientific reference for the port investment forecast and the rational planning of the port and its hinterland infrastructure.Finally,combining with the results of the port location advantages evolution and port location value theory,this paper proposes some suggestions on how to improve the port location value and promote the construction of overseas investment ports.