• The people: generally speaking our port band of brothers is not the normal “corporate, greasy-pole crowd”; our industry seems to attract people of character, and doubtless no-one will disagree.
• The ownership base of the business: there is still room for the entrepreneur as well as the corporation.
• The dynamic character of the business, as witnessed recently by the surge in global containerport demand.
• The interface factor of the port business and the unique challenges it presents.
  
• The varied nature of the business: mature and emerging economies, different industry sectors, every port is the same but different. Collectively, we have no excuse for not continuing to use those grey cells.
• More women in the sector: in deference of course to the Editor and others who will know who they are.

Dislikes

Excessive coverage in the media of industry rankings based on throughput volumes. If these were ever done according to profit they would all change; they have only a limited meaning.

Those that claim major success when it is really only “spin.” You know who you are…

Project implementation without proper planning and strategy. Strategy, forgive me for saying so, is what it is all about and there are a few white elephants to prove it.

So-called public tenders for port projects that are not really very public at all as they possess irrelevant restrictive criteria. Why do you need to handle more than X million teu/year to qualify for bidding for a container terminal concession with a throughput of 300,000+ teu/year? Less can be more.