ABSTRACT
Current global outsourcing trends in favour of China could not exist without supporting transport infrastructure. China has made spectacular leaps in upgrading its container port facilities in the past decade. Coastal container ports have averaged annual throughput growth rates in the order of 30% during the period 1991-2004 (Research and Markets 2005), and the overall volume of container throughput of mainland Chinese seaports reached 56 million TEU in 2005. However, while a growing literature has been documenting the rise of containerisation along China’s coast (Cullinane et al. 2004) and the growing role of international terminal operators and shipping lines in Chinese port business (Wang et al. 2004), a piece of the puzzle remains missing: how do port-cities (beyond individual ports themselves) interact with global supply chains in the context of China’s manufacturing boom?
