Not just in the lead feature \u2013 The Post COVID-19 New World – but also in the story lines of a number of PS columnists plus a look is taken at the recent impact on the share price of terminal operators.<\/p>\n
A number of analysts express the view that it is too soon yet to know what the full impact of COVID-19 will be but Andrew Penfold in the lead article considers this in the light of previous schisms in the container sector and what clues they may give.<\/p>\n
The big question is: can we return to business as usual? And the answer is: significant structural changes can be expected in supply chain strategies and possibly right through to changes in optimum vessel size and the associated port requirements.<\/p>\n
The story with COVID-19 of course continues to unfold and the challenges continue to build. In the meantime, however, so far as it is possible ports and terminals worldwide still have to plan future investments to meet the requirements of client shipping lines and cargo owners.<\/p>\n
Some parties feel deciding investment strategies now is a high-risk business and have largely parked this activity until a clearer picture is available after the COVID-19 pandemic recedes.<\/p>\n
\u2026AND CONCESSION PLANNING<\/strong><\/p>\n One task, however, that port authorities and other government bodies can proceed with is concession renewal, a subject area discussed in-depth in the very last editorial page of this issue, known in-house as \u2018the PS Page!\u2019<\/p>\n Experience tells us in this latter article that the preference is generally for renewal with the existing incumbent given that there are no exceptional circumstances to respond to.<\/p>\n Exceptional circumstances requiring a different response can encompass: new port planning initiatives, failures by concession holders and the pursuit of profit above other goals by the party offering the concession.<\/p>\n Sometimes, however, rather extraordinarily it can just boil down to indecision, excessive bureaucracy or \u2018human factors.\u2019 The suggestion is in the latter respects that the port management bodies concerned need to formulate a more empirical approach in order to not place a block in the path of progress.<\/p>\n Concession terms that wind right down to the very last days and are then renewed at this late stage inevitably dictate a halt to timely investment in the latter years. This can prove a big impediment to business development and should be avoided if at all possible.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" COMMENT: A range of thoughts and views are offered in this edition about the global ports industry in the post Covid-19 era, writes Mike Mundy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[94],"tags":[],"sponsor":[],"class_list":["post-1019","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-viewpoint"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1019","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1019"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1019\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1019"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1019"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1019"},{"taxonomy":"sponsor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sponsor?post=1019"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}