The promotion of Shanghai’s position and function in the global container shipping network

ABSTRACT

Shanghai’s container throughput has ranked first worldwide for 13 consecutive years beginning in 2010, indicating that Shanghai has built an international shipping centre capable of allocating resources for global shipping factors. This study considers global container shipping and shipping service networks as research objects to examine the node status and connection directions of Shanghai in these two networks. It also identifies the comparative advantages and weaknesses of Shanghai and proposes countermeasures and suggestions. The results show that Shanghai ranks high in the global container shipping network and is a sub-centre of the Busan system. Shanghai performs well in the mid-to-low-end shipping service industry in the shipping service network; however, a clear gap exists in the high-end service industry between Shanghai and European port cities. Thus, Shanghai should vigorously implement an international development strategy, actively promote a coordinated development strategy between ports, and integrate the construction of the shipping centre with that of financial and technological innovation centres.

KEYWORDS:

• Shipping network
• urban function
• shipping service
• development strategy
• port position

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Major Program of the National Social Science Fund of China [grant number 20&ZD070]; the Research Grant of the National Natural Science Foundation of China [grant number 41971155]; and Key Special Project for Introduced Talents Team of Southern Marine Science and Engineering Guangdong Laboratory (Guangzhou) [grant number GML2019ZD0601]; Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities.