Coopetition between Ports = Greater Competitiveness = richest

Autonomy implies the port closest to the object manager and managed economy, the port, which leads to greater attention and commitment and increased competitiveness, implying greater efficiency to compete or at least reduced costs for the customer.

After several years working in various ports and studying them, I have no doubt that it is essential to competition between ports and between port terminals, which are viable, in order to increase the competitiveness of the port system, seeking to maximize benefits for customers, ie for the economy.

The ports have as main objectives is to ensure the interface between land and sea links and be efficient and responsive logistics chains that serve the regions of the hinterland. Ports are essential for the competitiveness of regions and countries.

This role can not be met unless the ports are competitive, that is, without the efficient and effective and without providing a value for money and responsive to its major customers.

That is, the ports should try to have efficiency levels on high when compared with other ports, and minimize costs and maximize the quality of their services and should have the services that the region needs, and that its industries and importers are willing to pay the best price. No ports competitive, the regions are not competitive and not be able to compete with other regions to have higher GDP and higher levels of life.

In short, ports must constantly strive to reduce costs, reflecting that of lower prices to its customers, and increase the quality of their services, investing and improving their performance and productivity.

The competitiveness of ports can only be achieved with a higher exposure of the market, whenever possible, and with high levels of collaboration in areas where there are common interests or national interests. Thus, the competitiveness of ports can only be achieved with greater coopetition between ports.

Coopetition or "Co-opetition is a neologism coined to describe cooperative competition. Coopetition occurs when competitors in the market work together on parts of its business, in which they perceive they do not have competitive advantages, thus sharing common costs.

For example, cooperation between the Peugeot and Toyota in shared components for a new city car in 2005. In this case, companies could save money on shared costs, remaining fiercely competitive in other areas. In coopetition, companies must define very clearly which areas work together and where they compete.

In areas that ports must compete and in which areas the ports should cooperate?

No doubt the competition must be carried out in business, cargo, concession between the terminals and public, and there should be competition between ports by public and private investment, seeking to exploit its advantages to the investors and political power, which plans and decides to national level.

The marketing strategies of ports must be different and uncoordinated, the same should happen with the prices of ports, with the commercial work of each port and the dissemination at national level.

Still, the cooperation can and should be encouraged between ports at the national and regional level, particularly in activities to disseminate abroad in external partnerships, information systems, management of human and material resources, legislation and regulations, harmonization procedures, safety and protection, exchange of expertise, "lobbies" of common interest, logistics platforms and accessibility and research and development.

It could be argued for greater integration between ports in some countries, because they are many ports in a small strand. Looking at the examples of Belgium and the Netherlands, port systems that have the most efficient in the world, with ports such as Rotterdam and Antwerp, it appears that the ports are very short distances, all competing for the same hinterland, but each with its identity with its viability, its characteristics, its port community, its trade policy, all in all loads, running and specializing in certain market segments where Sutra comparative competitive advantages.

For example Zeebrugge is 75 km from Antwerp, Ghent is 48 km from Zeebrugge and 40 in Antwerp. The Port of Oostende is 20 km from Zeebrugge, Rotterdam is 63 Km from Amsterdam, Rotterdam is 70 km from Antwerp, Bremen is 85km from Hamburg, Tonning is 100km and 85km from Hamburg, Bremen, Wilhelms is 30 km Bremen. The port of Huelva is 85km from Seville and 86 km of Cadiz, Cadiz is 90 km from Algeciras, Marin is 18 km from Vigo, Coruna is 18 km from Ferrol.

The size, one could say that some ports are too small or that together they could have

economies of scale. The point is that the autonomous management of ports should not be made taking into consideration its size, but its own identity, different location, the port community and distinguished itself viable, and even with the integration of ports there would always be a split due to autonomous management of port terminals concession, and the economies of scale in the port authority can be achieved only with the use of coopetition in areas where this is possible without the need for this full integration.

The advantages of self-management relate to the proximity and with the competition. For those who manage more than one port, there is great difficulty in following all that becomes more distant. On the other hand, if a new harbor in growth can and should be more competitive than others, working with reduced costs, with positive impacts for the economy and the region, because to be hit with costs for Another port under common management that requiring, for example, flushing rates and prices by the highest losing competitiveness and winning vices?

The problems of integration of ports relate to the reduction of competition and the elimination of the efforts of those who can do the same with lower costs, better serving the region and expanding their hinterlands. The problem is the difficulty that the ports with more emphasis on historical costs have to be competitive, to reduce costs, have more innovative low-cost. The problem is when only one can improve their services based on heavy investments are not viable, only made possible if there is no competitive bidding.

Competition is key ports and has been advocated by the European Union with its various packages of measures to improve efficiency and transparency of the ports, bringing them closer to the market where possible, particularly in concessions with a view to regularly lead to port scanning each terminal to the market to see if there are other companies doing the same port service with lower costs, lower prices and better quality, so-called competition in the market. Another reason mentioned for integration is the need to specialize the ports. I have said several times that it makes sense to specialization of ports administratively, since this amounts to saying that the ports do not have to be effective, nor cheap, as there should be competition. The specialization of ports there and has done naturally through competition for port charges, for public and private investment by choosing the markets. The best, most effective is staying with the markets.

Today, the specialization of charges is not performed in large units: x moving car port, the port and handles containers, the port handles bulk z. All ports handle all types of packing of cargo: bulk cargo, general cargo, containers, vehicles. But specialization is now done by markets and market segments: the x port handles more passenger cars, containers for Africa and general cargo and bulk iron cement, and the port handles more containers in the market for deep-sea and transhipment and more bulk energy, the port handles more containers z short-sea and more bulk agri-food. To say that a port can not move containers is to stop the competition,

raise prices in the ports and create "fat" that remove unnecessary competitiveness of regions and the country.

But public investment in new infrastructure, that one should take into account the existing expertise at each port and its competitive advantages and disadvantages, and national policy, which can lead to, for example, encourage the transfer of certain charges between ports on grounds of national interest, regional or local.

Several international studies point to the autonomy of the port as a viable factor in improving their performance, and the higher is the aggregation of multiple ports under a single authority, the less appetite for competition and the greater the tendency towards monopoly, for price increases and for "administrative fat" that translate into costs to the economy and regions.

Autonomy implies the port closest to the object manager and managed economy, the port, which leads to greater attention and commitment and increased competitiveness, implying greater efficiency to compete or at least reduced costs for the customer.

Several studies indicate that competition between ports and between terminals as key to port efficiency and price more suitable for customers. Some authors suggest that the importance of duplication of infrastructure in the short term to increase competition and efficiency in order to keep prices down to the final customer.

Goss (1990) states that the competition can lead to increased efficiency but also can lead to excessive investment ability of the port infrastructure, because many ports can invest the same kind of competing infrastructure. However, the excess capacity of ports is essential to ensure competition between ports, improving performance from the perspective of the customer. H. Turner et al. (2004), Ng and Lee (2007), Herrera and Pang (2006) state that although it is important to maximize the output over the input, in terms of ports, it appears that when the occupancy rate of infrastructure the port exceeds certain levels, increase the costs of the delays to ships and cargoes.

Already a situation that encourages competition in the event of saturation, the port authorities are obliged to increase the supply in advance to ensure service quality and maintain / increase their market shares, thus limiting the levels of efficiency of resources used, which, although it could be negative for the ports as a whole, from the standpoint of the economy in general is very positive because it reduces the inefficiencies that would result in the transport system and its clients.