The Economist
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How long is a piece of string?
One of the challenges of ports and carriers is how to define their capacity. For container ships we have been introduced to the terms 'nominal' and 'effective' capacity as well as 'weighting out', and on the landside we have all sorts of measures. 03 May 2012 - Port Strategy
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Memory loss the bane of the industry
If someone suffers from memory loss or senility, then the shipping industry is where to be. The industry bounces from crisis to euphoria and then appears to forget how it got there, but as the events will be repeated every two to four years we do not need much of a memory. 22 Mar 2012 - Port Strategy
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Red-Med railway pipe dream
The Israeli government has approved the construction of a railway line from the Port of Eilat to the national railway grid, linking it to the Mediterranean ports of Ashdod and Haifa. 07 Mar 2012 - Port Strategy
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A bad dose of post-holiday blues
Never let it be said that economists are an optimistic bunch; we have a tendency to look for the downside in statistics, looking for reasons to scale things back to suggest that there is worse to come. 01 Feb 2012 - Port Strategy
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Western malaise only mildly infectious
The West consumes, the East produces, the population split is 1 billion vs 6 billion, and yet it seems strange that when the former catches a cold we expect the latter to sicken as well. The reality is quite different. 04 Jan 2012 - Port Strategy
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Financial roulette: the new game in town
It seems to me, as an interested observer, that the western hemisphere is in a gambling mood. There is a lot of hedging and slight of hand going on in the supposed rescue of the European banking system and Greece. 02 Nov 2011 - Port Strategy
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The medicine that damages the patient
It can be argued that too much belt tightening may not be a good thing: we can see a parallel with the fiscal measures used to fight excess debt at the sovereign levels. 19 Oct 2011 - Port Strategy
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The fiscal crisis has landed
The global economy is entering a difficult period, the outcome of which we cannot guess at this stage. 17 Aug 2011 - Port Strategy
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An Asian dilemma
Travelling around Asia opens the mind as there are events taking place here that introduce new issues, and these suggest we may not always have been looking in the right direction. 20 Jul 2011 - Port Strategy
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Re-inventing the wheel
Terminal operators today are moving to re-define their role, to come up with an identity that clarifies what they do. At least that is the case in container terminals; bulk terminals have a more clearly defined role. 22 Jun 2011 - Port Strategy
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Caution counselled as uncertainty rules
Our industry expects economists to provide forecasts for the months and years ahead, prognosticating about demand and supply as well as financial returns. We spout optimism and pessimism with equanimity, but often with a lag. 30 Mar 2011 - Port Strategy
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Promises of a good year
Being an economist is not easy. We are expected to have an opinion on the state of the economy but are usually castigated for our views. 23 Feb 2011 - Port Strategy
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Surviving 2010 not a panacea for 2011
What a wonderful year 2010 was: the container shipping industry has survived and even those on the edge of oblivion managed to get pulled back. 12 Jan 2011 - Port Strategy
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No Christmas stocking for box ports
The liner industry has entered the slow season. Normally the peak season comes around late August through early October, but this year it came early in the July-August period. 22 Dec 2010 - Port Strategy
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Fancy a Gamble?
Hedging, OTC trading and Derivatives have arrived in the container market. Ben Hackett 10 Nov 2010 - Port Strategy
