Transport Policy 25 (2013) 198–209 Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Transport Policy journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/tranpol Italian seaports’ competition policies: Facts and figures Antonio Musso a,n, Cristiana Piccioni a, Eddy Van de Voorde b a ‘‘Sapienza’’ University of Rome, School of Engineering, DICEA — Department of Civil Engineering, Building and Environment, Via Eudossiana 18, 00184 Rome, Italy b University of Antwerp, Department of Transport and Regional Economics, Stadscampus (CST) Bureau B431, Prinsstraat 13, 2000 Antwerp, Belgium article info abstract Available online 24 January 2013 Three decades ago, ports were generally regarded as homogeneous entities that competed with each Keywords: other at different operational levels. In the course of the 1990s, however, the ‘‘port product’’ Port management increasingly came to be seen as a set of interlinking functions, with the port as such serving as one Competitiveness of the links in the overall logistic chain. The most recent literature has revisited the concept of port Italian port system competition to take due account of the complex and heterogeneous nature of ports today. Moreover, Operating efficiency the focus is no longer exclusively on competition between ports, but increasingly also on internal competition, between individual production companies and service providers operating within or making use of the same port setting. Starting from the above framework, this paper focuses on the exogenous and endogenous variables that can affect port competition, which ultimately provides insight into potential strategies for improving the competitiveness of Italy’s seaports. & 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction 2. The current situation The recent port literature concurs that port competition has 2.1. Analysis of port traffic evolved towards a competitive struggle between logistic chains. Law 84/19941, which reformed the Italian port system, has Successful ports belong to successful chains. This means that the produced significant effects over the past two decades, representing competitiveness of individual ports depends not only on their a first step towards a more competitive port regime (cf. OECD, 2011). own strengths, but also on those of other links in the chain. There It has contributed to revitalising the national port industry, enhancing are ample examples of ports located at open sea and accessible to Italy’s role as a Mediterranean port destination and supporting freight the largest sea-going vessels that nonetheless lose some of their traffic increase (Marchese and Musso, 1997; Valleri et al., 2007; competitive edge due to, for example, inadequate hinterland Ferrari and Musso, 2010; Siviero, 2010; VV.AA., 2011). For one thing, connections. Within the European port landscape, strikingly high the total traffic volume increased by 27%, from approximately 400 throughput volumes are realised by some of the ports located million tons of maritime freight in 1997, including around 6.5% by in the so-called Hamburg – Le Havre range, indicating that they container, to 508 million tons in 2008, with a containerised share of belong to successful logistic chains. The Italian and, by extension, around 20% (Valleri et al., 2007; Costa and Casagrande, 2011). Mediterranean ports for their part seem to find it hard to However, the increases realised by the main Italian ports2,while integrate into alternative, more successful chains for the same destinations. 1 Law 28.01.1994, n. 84 and s. a. s. ‘‘Reorganization of the port legislation’’, regulates The present study starts from the question of which economic port activities and brings them in line with the General Transport Plan targets, and/or technological variables can influence and improve the updating/identifying the Plan’s implementation tools and the criteria for adopting and competitiveness of the Italian ports. A detailed overview is revising the Regional Transport Plans. The law also removed the port companies’ mo- provided of the current port landscape, followed by theoretical nopolies (previously, shipping lines were obliged to call on the port companies for dock and empirical analyses of the various key variables that can, at operations), introducing agreement tools (i.e. concessions) that allow private com- panies to manage port terminals and traffic-related operations (Tongzon and Heng, different levels, influence port competition. Additionally, a num- 2005). After over a decade, this law has been shown to have some weaknesses (cf. ber of potential strategies — as previous aimed at improving the World Bank and PPIAF, 2007; Ferrari and Musso, 2010). In order to modify law 84/ competitiveness of Italian ports — are identified and discussed. 1994, two years ago, three draft laws were put forward as a unified act (quote: ‘‘Testo Unificato del 21 Dicembre 2010, ‘‘La riforma della legislazione portuale’’). However, the debate is currently still in progress. 2 Gioia Tauro, the only Italian transhipment port of international stature, and n Corresponding author. Tel./fax: þ39 0644585146. the port of Taranto container terminal, which opened in 2001 and has a handling E-mail addresses: [email protected] (A. Musso), capacity of over 2 million TEUs/year, have contributed to Italy’s growing maritime [email protected] (C. Piccioni), traffic (cf. Costa and Casagrande, 2011; Costa and Dallari, 2008; Euro Mediterranean [email protected] (E. Van de Voorde). Transport Project, Technical note, 2005; VV.A.A., 2012). 0967-070X/$ - see front matter & 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tranpol.2012.11.001 A. Musso et al. / Transport Policy 25 (2013) 198–209 199 Table 1 Traffic in the main European ports (in 1000 TEUs and % variations). Source: Eurostat, Port Authorities. EU framework Ports 2000 2001 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 Var. 07/08 Var. 08/09 Var. 09/10 Var. 10/11 Var. 00/10 Var. 01/11 Northern Europe Hamburg 4,248 4,689 9,914 9,767 7,031 7,906 9,014 À1.48 À28.02 12.44 14.02 86.10 92.24 (North Sea side) Rotterdam 6,275 6,096 10,773 10,631 9,579 11,017 11,877 À1.32 À9.89 15.01 7.80 75.58 94.83 Antwerp 4,082 4,218 7,879 8,379 7,014 8,144 8,864 6.35 À16.29 16.11 8.84 99.52 110.15 Felixstowe 2,793 2,800 3,342 3,131 3,021 3,374 3,265 À6.31 À3.52 11.70 À3.24 20.82 16.61 Le Havre 1,465 1,525 2,685 2,512 2,257 2,369 2,215 À6.45 À10.13 4.96 À6.51 61.73 45.25 Central and Southern Marseille 722 742 1,058 901 943 1,031 945 À14.80 4.64 9.30 À8.37 42.79 27.31 Europe (MED side) Algeciras 2,009 2,152 3,419 3,297 2,953 2,777 3,603 À3.58 À10.42 À5.97 29.75 38.22 67.43 Valencia 1,308 1,507 3,049 3,606 3,654 4,198 4,327 18.28 1.33 14.87 3.08 220.92 187.13 Marsaxlokk 1,033 1,165 1,900 2,300 2,260 2,400 2,360 21.05 À1.74 6.19 À1.67 132.33 102.58 impressive in absolute terms, lagged behind those achieved in the Extending the analysis to the past decade one notices that, while rest of Europe (Table 1), thereby underscoring the lack of competi- the Italian port system has experienced substantial growth, this has tiveness of the Italian port system (Beretta et al., 2009; Costa and not translated into greater market share. According to the Eurostat Casagrande, 2011). statistics on container traffic, ten years ago Italy enjoyed a 15.20 % Moreover, although freight volumes handled in the main share in total volumes handled by the EU-15, ranking it well behind Italian seaports grew between 2000 and the first half of 2007, in Germany (more than 20%), but close to Spain and the Netherlands the subsequent three years there was a substantial decline in (more than 16%). By 2010, within the EU-27, Italy saw its share freight movements by sea (Table 2). This trend was due in part to reduced to 10.5%, falling well behind Belgium (12.9%) and even the economic recession affecting European and global trade further behind Germany (17.5%), Spain (15.5%) and the Netherlands during the 2008–2009 period. Indeed, in 2008 (and excluding (15%). Moreover, looking at the absolute values over a ten-year Trieste, as its 26% increase would distort the mean value), traffic period, the rate of container volume handled by Italian ports has fell on average by 2.10% compared to the previous year, while increased considerably less than the corresponding figure for other between 2008 and 2009, the average decrease at the national countries. Indeed, Italy realised a 35% increase, which is not particu- level was 5.1%. larly spectacular when compared to the 42% achieved by France, the By contrast, the 2009–2010 period marked an average 11.9% 68% by Germany, 89% by Spain, 82% by the Netherlands and, most increase in overall traffic excluding Taranto and Salerno, which impressive of all, 192% by Belgium. saw significant declines. These declines were however offset by Substantial growth in international container traffic is forecast the quite substantial increases of the total tonnage handled over for the coming years (2012–2016), in consequence of an antici- that same period at these ports. During 2010–2011, the ports pated increase in trade (Heymann, 2011). This trend is expected under study registered an average 4.3% decrease mainly due to a to be enhanced by the fast-changing dynamics in seaborne traffic decline in traffic at the ports of Brindisi, Gioia Tauro, Savona and at the European and global levels, driven more than ever before Civitavecchia.