International Maritime Centre (IMC)
Who is considered as an IMC?
The aim of this section is to use the characteristics collected in the previous section in order to determine who is currently considered as an IMC. In order to do so, two examples will be used – the IMC in Shanghai as well as the IMC in Vancouver. As we have previously determined, an IMC needs to combine three key aspects: be competitive on a global scale, provide a vast area of maritime cluster functions and a sizable range of supporting functions.
The first example is the IMC in Shanghai, which is China’s strongest player in the maritime market. Experts argue that the location itself gained its current position through a combination of favorable government policies and subsidiaries as well as the country’s impressive GDP growth. The port’s main strength lies in container shipping where currently 20 international liner services are operated on top of over 100 feeder service roots. On top of that, the Shanghai IMC is able to back it up with 145 berths of which 75 are equipped to serve vessels holding over 10,000 tones. Yet, on a global scale the IMC in Shanghai is still running behind other ports that offer more supporting services, especially in the areas of education and training as well as investment into ship research & development (Lam & Cullinane 2003). The second example is a port, which on the contrary excels in terms of supporting and auxiliary functions. The Vancouver IMC also benefited significantly from the country’s overall reputation in terms of access to capital and the favorable Canadian tax policies in shipping. In particular the policy excepts global shipping companies operating an office at the Vancouver IMC from paying any taxes in Canada. But in addition costumers are attracted by the strong partnerships the location holds with leading shipping research facilities and organizations as well as the opportunity to access highly skilled employees. (Vancouver International Maritime Center 2017).
References
Lam, J. & Cullinane K. (2003). Shanghai as an International Maritime Centre: Implications
for the East Asian Regional Economy. Proceedings of the Eastern Asia Society for
Transportation Studies, Vol.4, 288-301
Vancouver International Maritime Centre (2017). Why Vancouver. Vancouver International
Maritime Centre. Retrieved from …
