1) Port competitiveness

Prior literature offers useful insights into port competitiveness in different contexts and how key factors which determine port competitiveness have changed over time. In early work to identify key factors determining port competitiveness, physical attributes including port facilities, port rates and charge, and port location were the basic factors in port selection and competitiveness (e.g. Murphy et al. 1989).

Literature from the 1990s (e.g. Tongzon, 1994; Murphy et al., 1992) reveals a gradual change in the relative weights of the determinants of port choice, and featured more evaluation criteria such as work practices within a port, traffic volume, productivity and terminal efficiency. Besides, port productivity played an important role in enhancing port performance and port competitiveness.

Since 2000, with the growth of international trade and liberalisation of transport markets, the scale and the scope of a port have prominently increased. Pre-2000, academic work favoured a resource-based view to evaluate port competitiveness, based on port physical attributes such as facilities and location, whereas, after 2000, literature on port competitiveness placed great emphasis on activity-based and demandbased views for analysing port competitiveness (van den Berg and de Langen, 2011; Cho et al., 2010; Tongzon, 2009; Yeo et al., 2008; de Langen, 2007; Hall 2007; Notteboom and Rodrigue, 2005; Yeo and Song, 2006). At this stage, business stability and sustainability become important issues indicating how well the industry was adapting to an everchanging environment. Furthermore, with the growing scale of ports, the role of port hinterland has transformed into a strategic base from which logistics activities perform various services, and become a critical component to link elements of the supply chain more effectively (Notteboom and Rodrigue, 2005).

With the change of port environments, service quality and hinterland condition, landside accessibility, a strategy differentiation, port (terminal) operational efficiency level, reliability, cargo handling charges, and port selection preference of carriers and shippers have become the major factors that influence port competitiveness (Ahn et al., 2014; Yeo et al., 2011, 2008; Yeo, 2010; Li and Oh, 2010; Cho et al., 2010; Tongzon, 2009; Notteboom and Rodrigue, 2008). Reviews on port competitiveness indicate that attention to port competitiveness has moved to how to create and sustain it whilst accommodating customers’ expectations.

2) Port operations to be a regional gateway

A regional gateway port in a hub-and-spoke network is considered as a significant component of the local economy and economic cooperation with its surrounding areas can integrate the overall production and distribution systems (Low et al., 2009; Hall, 2007). In order to become a regional gateway port, the ports in NEA aspire to broaden their sphere of influence from a sea-shore interface to a comprehensive port which boosts global or major regional trade and the local economy (Wang and Cheng 2010). As economies of scale of mega-container ship operations are influenced by technical and economic feasibility, the critical issues on regional gateway port operations are closely connected with: physical capacities including water depth, berths and approach channels (Sys et al., 2008); the proper economic conditions such as sustainable cargo creation based on the local economy (Ishii et al., 2013; Notteboom and Rodrigue, 2008) and attractiveness to shipping liners in mainline and feeder markets (Yeo et al., 2011).

As revealed by Low et al. (2009), scale economies and port efficiency is the most important dimension in determining a port’s success as a regional gateway port in NEA. Prior studies on mega port operations aimed to identify economies of scale in port operations from both a concentration of container traffic and port efficiency. In terms of port location, geographic location plays a significant role in determining a regional gateway port. The ports located on the main trunk route have a priority in terms of intermediacy which affects connectivity. Moreover, a regional gateway port must have a centricity determined by economic size such as a market niche and hinterland conditions (van den Berg and de Langen, 2011; Wang and Cheng, 2010), as Chinese ports occupied a high position in the world port ranking. Superior centricity and intermediacy lead to more calls at the port and benefits for intermodal transport, utilisation of service facilities related to port and cargo consolidation and related services which benefit from economies of scale.