14. starptautiskā konference 2012 - Latvijas Jūras akadēmija

Proceedings of 14th International conference „Maritime Transport and Infrastructure - 2012”from industries that use mainly raw materials imported by sea and whose land transportation costswould have been too high, to those producing goods to be exported by sea and/or those whose optimallocation was where the break of bulk took place. Nowadays it is not longer the case as many of theseindustries, no technologically restricted to port areas any more, and suffering from the relative scarcityand/or high prices of space and other inputs, have moved to regions where these inputs are available atbetter conditions [7].Therefore the general guidelines for conducting analysis of port's economic impact providedby G. R. Yochum and V. B. Agarwal [8, 9] are worth mentioning. The guidelines are based ondifferent linkages between the port and the region's economy and depicture clearly theinterdependence degree between above mentioned economic subjects.1) Port required industry - employment in companies providing services for the movement ofwaterborne commerce. There are transportation services (e.g. freight forwarding, transport of cargo byrail and road) and port services (e.g. terminal operations, stevedoring, vessel supply, pilotage, towage,ship repair, diving services, insurance, legal services).2) Port attracted industry - employment in companies attracted to the region because of thepresence of the port and its facilities. If the port facilities were closed down, the companies wouldleave region. Usually these companies export commodities or import products or raw materials forassembly and distribution (e.g. steelworks, chemicals, refineries).3) Port induced industry - employment in companies that have expanded their markets byexporting through the port due to reduced transportation costs. Such industries are typically located ata substantial distance from port facilities (because theoretically they could be located in the regionregardless of the availability of port facilities) and cannot be identified on the basis of a meregeographical criterion.Some researchers have tried to discover the factors the impact of port on local economydepends on. After performance of empirical studies based on the port of Tampa (USA), J. S. DeSalvoand D. Fuller [10, 11] concluded that the impact of ports depends on the cargo volumes transshippedby the port and on the price elasticity of the demand for imports and exports channeled through thatport. Although M. Benacchio et. al. [7] did not reveal an apparent relation between the estimatedimpact and the total volume of ports throughput, vital importance to distinguish between changes incargo volumes, and changes in the commodity mix was stressed in their study. Different commoditiesrequire different handling methods and thus different use of labour, material and service inputs fortheir loading and unloading. It means that a rise in the share of containerized traffic would decreaseaggregate direct labour inputs (stevedoring services), increase indirect effects due to logistic activitiesperformed on high value goods, increase capital investments and expenditures on items such as fueloil, in turn indirectly altering the structure of local economy. It is acknowledged [7] also that theemployment structure (workers, professionals, engineers etc.) is an important indicator of the qualityof the impact in terms of its added value. At the same time the growth in tons does not definitely leadto a comparable growth in terms of employment because the introduction of containerization andstandardization of cargo could induce the transformation of ports from main service centres to simpletransit points.According to R. O. Goss [12] there are at least four clear reasons for which port expansion orimprovement is likely to be an inefficient tool of economic development strategy: Port benefits are likely to "leak" to users in inland locations; Assisting and investing public money in a port will probably mean assisting foreign exporters,some of whom will be able to compete more effectively with home producers; Any public assistance to a port is likely to lead to higher local taxes (local share ofinfrastructure financing), running the risk to make the area less attractive to residents andpossible businesses too; Since the aggregate demand for labour within any given economy is determined bymacroeconomics factors, ports are competing among themselves for a share of a reasonablyfixed level of business (e.g. the expansion of a port belonging to a range could also be at theexpense of lost trade in other regional or national ports belonging to the same range).17