Shipping and Ports at Crossroads

Abstract

Competitiveness, efficiency and effectiveness stand as core targets of today’s corporate strategies of shipping and ports, and mark relevant regulatory initiatives at national, peripheral and global level. Meanwhile, shipping companies and port service providers jockey to exploit global sourcing opportunities in order to compete effectively at a global scale.

The continuous development and formation of global players, and the (de)regulatory approaches that are associated with these trends are indicative. Financial sources, human resources, operational strategies, performance measurements, horizontal and vertical integration practices, environmental considerations and greening operations, technological advancements, transport systems integration, and not least marine and maritime education systems, are all reassessed under the prism of a maritime sector speedily adopting new structures.

These developments were the focal themes of the second edition of the European Conference on Shipping, Intermodalism & Ports – ECONSHIP 2015. The Conference was organized by the Department of Shipping, Trade and Transport of the University of the Aegean in Chios, Greece an island of maritime tradition. With its theme being “Shipping and Ports at Crossroads: Competition, Global Sourcing and Regulatory Challenges”, ECONSHIP 2015 attracted leading maritime economists and researchers with an interest in shipping, transport and trade from 23 countries, advancing knowledge on the driving forces and the potential shapes of modern forms of competition in shipping, ports, and related intermodal transport systems, as well as on the implications and regulatory challenges associated with them.

The present volume of SPOUDAI presents five empirical papers which have been co- authored by young maritime economists (i.e. at post-doctoral or doctoral level) and more senior colleagues working at Universities in Greece, were first presented at ECONSHIP 2015, and succeed to advance our knowledge on the way that modern shipping and ports are shaped.

These five papers examine the modern structures of shipping in several market segments, including the second-hand market, explore tools that will enable improvements as regards forecasting and risk minimisation in shipping and ports, the ways that environmental challenges, like waste handling and port reception facilities, evolve and the operational responses implied by relevant regulatory developments, and the villa dipuncak corporate relations developed within the maritime world.

Since their selection by the editors, the five studies have been extensively revised and as the peer review process concluded they offer useful insights of both scientific and practical- managerial value.

Shipping is an industry marked by the presence of most dynamic and active second-hand markets. Ship-owners involved in these markets are exposed to considerable risk, with transactions made under conditions of uncertainty and limited predictability about market trends. The opportunity of entry or exit is linked with investment decisions influenced by expectations about the phase of the shipping circle. Therefore, the understanding what determines second-hand prices and the sources of fluctuations allows better determining the size of asset play in a specific time period.
This is the topic of the first article of the volume. Geomelos and Xideas examine second-hand shipping markets aiming to model and analyse the level of risks in which participants in this