Shipping Economics: Collected Papers PDF
Preview Shipping Economics: Collected Papers
SHIPPING ECONOMICS: COLLECTED PAPERS By the same author BRITISH SHIPPING AND WORLD COMPETITION SHIPPING ECONOMICS: COLLECTED PAPERS S. G. Sturmey ISBN 978-1-349-02550-3 ISBN 978-1-349-02548-0 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-02548-0 © S. G. Sturmey 1975 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without permission. Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1975 978-0-333-18070-9 First published 1975 by THE MACMILLAN PRESS LTD London and Basingstoke Associated companies in New York, Dublin, Melbourne, Johannesburg and Madras SBN 333 18070 4 This book is sold subject to the standard conditions of the Net Book Agreement To Katerina Contents NOTE The dates in brackets are those of the completion of a paper: the date of publication, where applicable, is given in the text. An asterisk indicates previously unpublished papers. Introduction IX CONFERENCES AND LINER TRADES Blood on the Thames (1963)* 9 2 International shipping cartels (1962)* 9 3 What of that new spirit among owners? (1964) 22 4 On being beastly to conferences (I 964-6) * 33 5 Some aspects of ocean liner economics ( 1964) 4 7 6 Economics and international liner services (1964-7) 68 7 Non-discriminatory liner freight rates (1967-70)* 96 GENERAL TOPICS 8 The economics of running big ships (1964) 102 9 On the pricing of tramp ship freight services (1965) 109 10 Barrow, containers and Morecambe: a polemic on regional planning ( 19 66) 12 2 11 The Kra Canal (1963-74)* (1966) 133 12 Trends in shipping economics 1966-2066 (1966) 155 13 Characteristics of ownership ( 1972) 165 SHIPPING POLICY 14 A consideration of the ends and means of national shipping policy ( 19 59-65) 17 6 viii SHIPPING ECONOMICS: COLLECTED PAPERS 15 Ocean freight rates and economic research (1966) 203 16 The structure of commerce ( 1971) 227 17 Main themes of UN C TAD research studies (1971) 235 18 The shipping needs of developing countries ( 1971) 246 Introduction When British Shipping and World Competition1 was published at the end of rg62, it attracted an amount of attention which was probably unprecedented for a work in shipping economics. This was the result of a lucky accident of timing which led to the book appearing near the beginning of a period of doubt and questioning concerning not only the organisation of the British shipping industry, but also of many aspects of shipping as an international industry. The primary object of this doubt and questioning was the liner conference system and much of what has occurred in world shipping since the end of r g62 has related to liners. There are three broad areas in world shipping, namely liquid bulk, dry bulk and general cargo. In 1971 these com prised roughly 57 per cent, 30 per cent and 13 per cent respec tively of the tonnage of cargoes carried. These tonnage figures, however, do not indicate the relative economic or commercial importance of each category of cargo - for example, general cargo possibly comprised around one-half of seaborne trade by value - nor do they reflect the relative importance of the three categories to the world shipping industry, since general cargo is much more important as a source of employment for ships and offreight earnings than the figure of 13 per cent might suggest. It is, as a broad generalisation, true to say that in the twelve years since the book was published the liquid bulk market has experienced only relatively minor changes in its economic organisation. The period has seen the emergence of tankers of ever-increasing size, of gas carriers of ever-increasing sophisti cation. Eleven years ago these developments could scarcely be visualised and they have clearly affected the structure and organisation of the market, but in an evolutionary and not a revolutionary way. The dry bulk market has seen bigger changes. Some have X SHIPPING ECONOMICS; COLLECTED PAPERS been in the same direction as in the liquid bulk market, namely, the move to larger and more sophisticated ships. More impor tant, however, from the point of view of the papers collected here is the way in which the boundary line between the general cargo market and the dry bulk market has been redrawn. Many cargoes have moved, partly or wholly, out of the general cargo market into the bulk market. This has affected the economic operations and the technical design of general cargo carriers. It has also reduced considerably the role played in world shipping by the 'handy' tramp - the vessel willing and able to carry bulk loads of all types of cargo in a non-specialised fashion and, in many cases, to double on liner services. This type of vessel has not disappeared, and probably will not disappear within the foreseeable future, but the reduction of its relative importance has changed the entry conditions to world shipping, which are now much more difficult, and has also affected operations in the general cargo market. Most of the papers collected here concern general cargo operations and many of them are directly concerned with liner operations and the organisation ofliner conferences. The general cargo market is that in which the greatest changes have occurred, technically, institutionally and, inevitably, in eco nomic operation. These changes are too great for any form of thumbnail sketch of the market to be accurate or appropriate, even in the most broad and general sense. Some aspects will be dealt with in introducing certain of the papers which follow; to cover everything would require writing a new book. One matter appropriately taken up here is the question of the control ofliner conferences. There has been a good deal of disquiet about their operations, practically ever since they first started in I875, and some of the reasons for this are given in the paper 'On being beastly to conferences'. At a round-table discussion in November I963 it was suggested that conferences might be controlled internationally. The text as printed was: 'I feel that there is room for the sort of thing the Americans are trying to do. But not done by one country; in other words I could see an advantage in an international body which did keep a watch over what shipping conferences were doing; not necessarily controlling them, but a body which was some sort
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