Analysis of competitive relationship among East Asian ports by Cointegration Test

Abstract

Expansion of port competition is growing very fast to attract more container throughput due to international specialization which MNCs have moved into low-cost cluster for saving cost and expanding market. East Asia is the center of this relationship because the ports in this region are connected in competitive or complementary relationship related to a number of container throughputs. This study shows the competitive relationship by cointegration test with time series data to prove the broad expansion of port competition. East Asian ports keep Hub & Spoke relationship for the past 20 years and multiple transshipment system has been introduced recently. Taiwanese ports are shrinking and Chinese Eastern ports are growing. This study identifies the role of Busan port as the hub port in Northeast Asia and the competitive relationship between Incheon and Chinese ports. This study shows the analysis of the past 20 years but don’t deal with the fierce competition among East Asian ports in recent years in terms of limitation of this study.