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"Promote
incentives and support mechanisms at three
levels. First, sustaining favourable taxation
schemes and creating mechanisms to strengthen
the corporate culture and structure of EU
shipping companies," the report advised.
"Second,
set up mechanisms to attract and sustain
companies to maritime clusters; and sustaining
mechanisms for competence and skills building
and development for the shipping industry.
"And
third, faciltate trade by removing trade
limits through diplomatic means with protectionist
country/region/trade lane; reducing red
tape in the EU," the report said.
The
researchers also recommended further research
into schemes which make a maritime career
more attractive for EU citizens.
"Support
the position of the EU as frontrunner in
maritime technology in practice, eg, R&D
support measures, enabling the testing of
new technologies, such as unmanned ships;
"Pay
a closer attention to feedering and relay
operations when negotiating new agreements,
and to the possibilities for EU shipping
companies to carry their own cargo in a
more efficient way to the port of final
destination;
"Support
further research into clarifying the eligibility
requirements under the Maritime State Aid
Guidelines to extend to vessels providing
offshore services," it said.
"The
trade relationship between the EU and China
initially started as an import relationship
but is becoming more balanced, given that
export volumes from the EU towards China
have grown faster over the last 15 years
than import volumes (a factor five versus
three).
Capacity
developments in Panama and Nicaragua will
enable the shipping industry to sail with
larger vessels than usual and to generate
cost reductions.
"At
the level of ports, the level of competition
between the north and south European ports
is modest, because of the natural barrier
of the mountains, and because it is generally
limited to a small geographical area.
"The
transshipment function of the south European
ports faces more competition from competing
ports and port developments in North Africa,"
the analysts said.
Transshipment
in the north European port range faces less
external competition unless logistics patterns
change, for instance to more direct calls
or mainline to mainline transshipments.
A
future challenge for the ports is the ongoing
increase in vessel size and therefore more
concentrated volumes need to be handled
in the ports themselves as well as on the
hinterland connections.
Cabotage
operations have been largely excluded from
any liberalisation efforts at the international
level, partly due to their politically sensitive
nature in many countries. This general trend
to exclude cabotage is well reflected in
the agreements, as making restrictions on
this point is a common approach across all
agreements, the team said.
Although
the EU-China agreement restricts cabotage
for EU operators, the
agreement
opens doors in terms of transport of self-owned
or leased empty containers, which is not
provided for in other agreements.
The
cabotage scheme in India is also restricted
for foreign flagged vessels. With regard
to feedering and relay, the former takes
a higher share of overall traffic than the
latter, at a ratio of 85 per cent to 15
per cent of
the
total transshipment traffic globally. This
means that in economic terms, feedering
operations are much more relevant than relay
operations.
Figures
on global regions indicate that feedering
operations are particularly relevant in
China, while relay is relevant in countries
with major maritime hubs, such as Singapore.
South Korea is also relevant due to the
large transhipment traffic that is carried
through its ports as a result of feedering
and relay restrictions in China.
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