A Study On The Theory And Practice Of Modern Port Development

Driven by the economic globalization, ports in many countries and regions have, in less than 10 years, accomplished the transition from a basic functional facility of transportation to a resource allocation hub of the world market and become important links in the global trade and transport chain. The modern transportation mode characterized by international containerization has not only brought about a major adjustment in the world industrial structure and economic pattern but also catalyzed a new round of upsurge in port construction and development on a global scale. In the mid 1990s, an intense competition started in the world for the position of an international shipping center and a regional international container hub port. The level of the competition has even gone beyond the business scope of the port and shipping industries, and become more and more characterized by a governmental color of administrative action. Quite a few countries have passed laws aiming at strengthening port construction and development. Many countries and regions have increased their investment through diverse channels to further expand their port scale and enhance their ports' competitiveness in the international shipping market. Economic development has provided the port theoretical research with an ample basis for practice. To deepen the theoretical research on port development and fully comprehend its basic functioning laws will be of great practical significance for us to plan a coordinated development of port and social economy and advance the construction of Shanghai international shipping centerTaking the economic globalization and port development research as the thread, this thesis applies the basic tenets of Marxism and the approach of contemporary economics as well as other various theories of learning to the study and exploration of the theoretical and practical issues in port development. In the light of the practice of port development, this thesis focuses on the research work in four fields: (1) Through analysis of the interrelationship between the transportation and economic development in the different stages of modern capitalism, it makes further study and demonstration on the historical process and basic functioning laws of the port formation and development; (2) By using the theory of economics to analyze the interaction between the port and the regional economic development, itmakes further analysis and demonstration on the port's space agglomeration and dispersion effects on the regional economic development; (3) By analyzing the characteristics and basic trend of the modern world economy, it further analyzes the situation of international competition that the coastal ports of China are facing and proposes a port development strategy and the basic measures; (4) By analyzing formation and development process as well as the functioning laws of the international shipping centers of the world in different stages, it makes further study and exploration on the major problems that the current construction of the Shanghai international shipping center urgently needs to solve.As a result of collating, sorting and verifying the documents and datum in hand, the basic viewpoints proposed and the research work conducted by this thesis in the following four fields are of creativity: (1) Through analyzing the acting method and way of the port's space agglomeration and dispersion effects, it proposes and demonstrates the interrelationship between the economic capacity of the port city and the development scale of the regional economy; (2) Through analyzing the situation and trend of the international competition among ports, it proposes the concept of "competitive attraction effects" among the regional international port clusters, i.e. the interrelationship that competitive level between the ports of neighboring countries or areas in the same region is in direct proportion to the scale of their industry and in inverse proportion to their geographic distance; (3) Through analyzing the basic features of the port infrastructure, it proposes a basic functioning method for social capitals to invest in the port infrastructure projects, i.e. the unit property right structural mode for social capital investment projects; (4) Through comparing and analyzing the current evaluating methods of port international competitiveness, it proposes a viewpoint of grading and evaluating different ports and establishes a complex model of port international competitiveness evaluation by using the mathematical and physical analysis methods, such as structural equation modeling and cluster analysis.This thesis is composed of three sections with ten chapters.Section One, consisting of Chapter I, Chapter II and Chapter III, deals with the research on the elementary theory of port development. Chapter I is Introduction, which focuses on exposition and summary of the practical significance of the selected topics and the basic structure of this thesis., Chapter II is about the achievements in theoretical research at home and abroad on economic globalization and port industry development Chapter III mainly studies the basic functioning laws of port in modern times. It focuses on further exploration of the basic functioning laws of port industry in modern times through analyzing the formation and development process of port industry and its basic production process after the establishment of the production relations of modern capitalist commodity economy. The major way of study is to lay foundation for the theoretical research on port development by reviewing the historical evolution of ports and studying their basicfunctioning laws.Section Two, consisting of Chapter IV, Chapter V, Chapter VI and Chapter VII, deals with practical application of port development theory. Chapter IV focuses on port market structure and its agglomeration and dispersion effects on regional economy. Chapter V focuses on policy environment and administrative system of modern ports. Chapter VI focuses on analysis of international port competition and the competitive situation that coastal ports of China are facing and proposes a development strategy and the basic measures for Chinese ports. In light of the analysis of the current evaluation index system for port international competitiveness, Chapter VII establishes an index system and a basic model to evaluate the international competitiveness of the ports according to their grades. The major way for research is, by means of mathematical and physical analysis methods and through a combined quantitative and qualitative analysis method, to conduct theoretical analysis of the practical issues arising from port development course and propose ways to deal with them.Section Three, consisting of Chapter VIII Chapter IX and Chapter X, is about the summary and thoughts about the practice of port development. Chapter VIII mainly reviews the reform and development process of the property rights structure of the coastal ports of China and expounds issues such as port administrative system restructuring, port financing system restructuring and further improvement of the administrative functions of the government under the condition of port multiple property rights. Chapter IX focuses on the study of historical evolution and basic functioning laws of the international shipping centers in the world and, in light of the major tasks that the construction of Shanghai international shipping center is facing, proposes a basic viewpoint that efforts should be made to improve modern maritime service industry in the port while strengthening the construction of hardware environment of port infrastructure. It also carries out studies on the necessity and feasibility of the international container transshipment of the coastal ports of our country and proposes some concrete suggestions for implementation. Chapter X is the conclusion.the major way of study is, through summary and analysis of the practice of reform and development of Chinese ports and in line with the basic requirements of economic development of our times, to define the basic administrative functions of the government over the ports and set forth the basic task and goal for the establishment of Shanghai international shipping center.