New Maritime Alliances and Competition in a New Economic Environment

Abstract

The recent creation of transport and information networks opens up two new and outstanding options: the interconnection of the economic areas and a new mediation between offer and demand in shipping. In this document the different ways of organization adopted by shipping companies were reviewed; their agreements, alliances, mergers and acquisitions, so as to determine the different levels of hierarchy among them. Secondly, a new port classification was proposed in accordance with the structure and development of shipping companies, together with the degree of port specialization within the framework of the recent spatial integration.

Keywords

• maritime container transport
• maritime policy
• economic environment
• port development
• inter-modality
• container ports