The first time I expressed my concerns about the mega-containership phenomenon was in 2000,
in my “second scenario”.[1]
I could then see 6 macro-trends, reinforcing each other, which could
potentially halt the gigantism in
container shipping, as well as in mega-hub-port development. These trends were:
i) worldwide port development; ii) regionalization of trade; iii)
infrastructure development in southern Europe; iv) road pricing in Europe; v)
the future of liner shipping alliances; and vi) the impact of information
technology.
I was laughed at then, as “the professor with the different
opinion”. You see, those were the days when everybody was talking about the
Malacca-Max (18,000 TEU) ships and similar creativities, which were listened to,
unfortunately impulsively, by many ports. And I was laughed at again, because ships
continued to grow unabated, in spite
of the fact that my six trends had conspicuously materialized in these 18 years
since 2000.
This, however, was not due to a failure of the
underlying trends to influence ship-size development, but to failure in
regulatory policy; both in terms of our inability to develop a coherent port
policy in Europe, and our ‘eyebrow-raising’ leniency towards increasing
concentration in liner shipping, in the form of global shipping alliances.
CMA-CGM, Drewry, OECD, and Fairplay[2]
now believe that things may have started to change. Adding a note of personal gratification, I
am happy to take note of their recent conviction. However, things have started to
change 20 years ago; we only didn’t know it; or did we?
HH
[1] Haralambides,
H.E. (2000) A second scenario on the
future of the hub-and-spoke system in liner shipping. Latin Ports and
Shipping 2000 Conference, Lloyd’s List, 14-16 November 2000, Miami, FL., USA—(you
can download the paper from my Academia and ResearchGate profiles).
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