Research On The Competitiveness Of Qingdao Port Among Northeast Asia Ports

In the 21st century, with the trend of economic globalization and the acceleration of regional development, economic center shifts, and Northeast Asia is becoming a new growth point of the world economy for its unique geographic advantages and economic complementarities. The rapid development of economy and international trade makes ports in the region grow fast. For being international container hub ports and international shipping center, major ports are increasing investment in improving their hardware and software environment. From a global perspective, there are four ports in this region ranking in the 2010 top 10 global container ports, including Shanghai port, Busan port, Ningbo-Zhoushan port and Qingdao port. Ports in North East Asia have an increasing competitiveness, and there top priority is to enhance port competitiveness. Also, an international shipping center needs to be built in Bohai bay region, as the third pole of economic development in China and the forefront to participate in international competition and cooperation.Qingdao port has made impressive achievements, becoming the 7th port and the 8th container port in the world from an ordinary port in 1980th. However, it also faces an increasing fiercely competitive environment: from the domestic perspective, the three major ports in Bohai bay region develop fast with their respective advantages; from the international perspective, the lack of international container hub port in China makes a large part of cargo be attracted to ports in Japan and Korea. Qingdao port is going to build a modern comprehensive port and an international shipping center in Northeast Asia, which is clearly stated in "Shandong Peninsula blue Economic Zone Development Plan" in 2011. Thus, it becomes necessary to compare competitive situation among Qingdao port and other major ports in Northeast Asia, and raise methods to enhance the competitiveness of Qingdao port.This research firstly sorts out the concept of competitiveness, port competitiveness, reasons of port competition, its contents and main characters, and relevant researches. Then it analyzes competitive advantages and disadvantages of Qingdao port in Northeast Asia ports, including ports profile comparison (natural conditions, port distribution and berths situation, collection and distribution system, the hinterland economy, port capacity, high-tech information construction, development strategy), ports throughput comparison and port elasticity comparison, etc, and makes Qingdao port SWOT analysis. On the basis of that, this research innovatively analyzes technical efficiency and competitive position of Northeast Asia ports in DEA and MDEA method. It finally makes an strategic orientation for Qingdao port and brings forward some suggestions to enhance Qingdao port's competitiveness.