Viewpoint – Page 8
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NewsRadiation checks reveal common policy void
As April ended and May started, ships that had called at Japanese ports post-radiation leaks finally found their way to European and US ports. And what greeted them was a disjointed mix of reactions and confused strategies on screening and decontamination plans.
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NewsFront line
Ports are the front line for any island nation; they are the gateway for both inbound goods and commodities and for potential revenue-earning exports. The series of recent natural disasters has put this dependence into stark perspective.
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NewsJoining the dots
February’s opening of Vietnam’s largest ever container terminal has at last crystallised the country’s true potential in the box handling market.
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NewsHutchison aims for top of the list
New year, new take on port listings. Or that’s what Hutchison Whampoa is banking on with its US$6bn initial public offering for its port assets in Hong Kong and southern China.
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NewsTiming issues
Dalian, north China''s largest operator, is the latest port to test the murky capital financing markets with a listing on the Shanghai stock exchange.
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NewsStarter's orders
Is it time to reinvigorate those stalled port expansion plans, or should operators wait for more certain economic statistics?
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NewsBrave new world
Surely dockworkers around the world must be getting the message that pressure tactics have had their day... or are they still able to turn a blind eye to the big picture of economic uncertainty and lower priced alternatives?
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NewsHigh society
The new UK government’s championing of “Big Society” has inspired at least one national port community to think local.
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NewsChain reaction
Today’s busy lifestyles mean that we are always on the run – whether it’s from one country to another, one meeting to another, or, in the case of ships, from one port to another.
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NewsAn oily mess
As I write this column, we are one month on from the devastating Deepwater Horizon explosion and the inevitable ecological disaster is still to be fully realised.
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NewsA watery rebirth
As I write this column, the UK is just emerging from yet another day of airspace troubles; the result of Iceland’s hard-to-pronounce volcano slewing thousands of tonnes of ash into the skies.
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NewsA spoke in the wheel
It''s easy to get caught up in the ‘us’ and ‘them’ mindset working in the shipping industry.
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NewsPlant food
I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised at the events taking place in the liner industry today; once that solitary green shoot had been spied the woes of the past year suddenly seemed a distant memory. Recession? What recession?
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NewsThe strategist
In the first Strategist column of the year, I''d like to start with some simple suggestions for future port operations success.
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Between a rock and a hard place
In the last issue of the year, it is traditional to reflect on the year gone by. However, I''m afraid I can see little worth in reliving the mess that was 2009.
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NewsPrivate concerns
Much is written about the ''pioneering'' nature of the UK port model. Indeed, a fully privatised model was a thing of envy in the late 1990s when ports around the world were getting to grips with the benefits privatisation could bring.
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NewsFly by night
More and more, moving a container from A to B is becoming like flying with a low cost budget airline. You book your ticket, you pay the fare only to find that it doesn''t really cover everything you expected it to.
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A fine mess
The news that France and Germany are ''officially'' out of recession should be music to the ears of box terminal operators. A growth in gross domestic product - albeit a subdued 0.3% one - in both countries in the second quarter should herald the start of the uptick, bringing with ...
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What's in your basket?
As the latest set of quarterly container throughput figures hits the wire, there''s no disguising the continued trade slump on the key east-west trade routes. So, perhaps it''s time to remind ourselves that seabourne trade is not all about boxes - although it''s been hard to think of anything else ...
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Work smarter
It''s easy in this economic trough in which we find ourselves to be fooled into thinking that nips and tucks in your business structure will be enough to see you through the lean times. But if your "vision" is that narrow, you will be missing many tricks that could put ...
