• Journal of Korea Port Economic Association
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.89-107
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• 2016

It is a critical problem of the Busan container cargo market that serious competition between the north port terminal and the new port terminal is weakening port of Busan's competitiveness. To avoid this serious competition, Busan Port Authority(BPA) has executed a cargo-rate approval system from last year. However if Busan's container terminal operators do not accept this system, the execution performance will be insufficient. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to test the effect of cargo-rate approval in the Busan container cargo market. To attain this research purpose, the current situation was analyzed and the existing papers were investigated. Therefore, cargo-stabilizing factors were extracted and the moderated effect between these factors and cargo-rate approval was tested. The results are as follows. First, three cargo stabilizing factors-(market structure, market behavior, and BPA)-appear to have a strong positive impact on the stabilizing effect; however, the factors that are handled by the operators can not influence the stabilizing effect. In particular, market behavior factors, such as cargo-rate dumping restriction, contributed to stabilizing cargo market. Second, The results appear to have a strong positive impact on the moderated effect as well as the cargo-rate approval. These research results show that the execution of cargo-rate approval is important in stabilizing the cargo market. Therefore, stabilizing the cargo market will contrubute to improving the image and bargaining power of the Port of Busan.

• Journal of Korea Port Economic Association
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• v.37 no.3
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• pp.117-128
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• 2021

In order for the users (shipping firms and shippers) and suppliers (stevedoring firms) in the container terminal industry to win-win, it is necessary to have some appropriate diverse market conditions for the industry. This study analyses the basic conditions and demand and supply characteristics of the industry and investigates the market performance of Busan container ports. First, this article analyses the basic characteristics of demand and supply. As the demand characteristics, there are five ones such as 1) exogeneity of demand, 2) function as export/import transportation and hub for transshipment, 3) increase of users' bargaining power, 4) high substituting elasticity, 5) reduction of volume growth. As the supply characteristics, there are seven ones such as 1) inelasticity of supply, 2) homogeneity of stevedoring services, 3) over-supply, 4) adoption of cutting-edge stevedoring technology, 5) scale economy and impossibility of storage, 6) labor market rigidity, 7) enhancing port's role in SCM. In addition, this study conducts the so-called structure-conduct-performance analysis. For the structure analysis, 1) lacks of scale economy in stevedoring companies, 2) high entry barrier, 3) strengthening of shipping firms' bargaining power, 4) transitory permission scheme for tariff are analyzed. For the conduct analysis, 1) price discrimination between export/import and transshipment, 2) mid-term length of terminal use contract, 3) continuous investment in equipment, 4) low level of cooperation among terminal operating firms are derived. For the performance analysis, 1) inequality in profitability, 2) reduction of export/import cost, 3) delay in adopting cutting-edge technology, 4) idle equipment are analyzed. Following this logical flow, the hypothesis that the market structure influences the market conduct is tested based on the actual dataset. As a future agenda in the conclusion, this article recommends the so-called port industrial policy.