SmartPort Community Lunchmeeting, December 11th 12.00-13.30

Time: 12.00-13.30
Location: Mandeville building, T09-67
Date: December 11th, 2018

Speaker: Prof. Yutaka Yamamoto

Title presentation: Japan Port Policies and Issues

Summary:

The research focuses on reviewing changes of the industry structure and how port policies tracked the changes and discussed how the policies should be designed. Firstly the research reviews changes of Japan export, especially after containerization. Even if export has driven the country, the export was influenced by conflicts with the export countries and exchange rates in some time. The Japanese government has developed container terminals such as Kobe and Yokohama since 1960s. Additionally to areas, Nagoya was most intensively industrialized area in Japan. The investment continued until early 1990s. It was a period when the port policies and the Japanese industries integrated efficiently and made fruitful outputs.

Trade war and Japanese Yen appreciation made the Japanese manufacturers shifting productions overseas. It’s happened since the 1980s, especially after the Praza Accord in 1985. In 1995 the government set new port policies to facilitate container terminal developments across the nation. Now Japan has over 60 container ports. Due to some production shifts and China’s appearance, Japan export started going down. Facilitating the local ports worked for local economies rather than meeting export demands. It was a period port policies started having a gap with industries.

The local ports have mostly linked to Pusan, Korea not Japanese ports due to competitive reasons. The government had concerns about losing Japanese cargo to an overseas hub port. In 2013 the Strategic International Container Projects have started following the Super Hub Projects. The government has invested in domestic feeder companies over the 3rd party companies. Results were in increases of T/S cargo at Kobe, however, the number of port calls of trunk lines was decreased. The government should have understood that Japan’s cargo have consisted of Intra-Asia cargo since a while ago. Conclusions include some proposal of future designs between Japanese industries and port policies.