The Performance of Seaport Clusters - RePub - Erasmus Universiteit ...

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The Performance of Port Clusters
Durban’s port cluster is relatively diverse. The port is very diverse in terms of traffic base,
virtually all commodities are handled in Durban. Durban is relatively less diverse in terms of
international scope: most firms are niche-operators that concentrate on the South(ern)
African market.
Rotterdam’s port cluster is diverse. The opinions of the experts are in line with data. The
cluster is endowed with a diverse set of firms, especially in terms of international scope.
Various headquarters of internationally operating firms are located in Rotterdam.
10.5 The importance of the variables of the cluster structure
The issue of the importance of the various variables related to the structure of the cluster is
addressed in the survey. The experts were asked to rank 10 structure variables from 1 (most
important) to 10 (least important). Table 45 shows the results.
Table 45: Importance of structure variables; average scores
Variable Importance
Durban
Importance
Rotterdam
Importance
LMPC
Importance
Overall
Presence of customers and suppliers 2.2 2.0 2.7 2.2*
Quality of labor pool 3.7 4.0 4.7 4.0**
Diversity of the cluster population 4.6 4.7 5.6 4.8
Presence of internal competition 4.8 4.9 5.6 5.0
Diversity of cluster resources 5.1 5.7 4.5 5.3
Presence of knowledge 7.5**** 5.1 4.1*** 5.9
Level of entry barriers 6.2 6.3 5.1 6.1
Presence of congestion 5.1*** 6.8 6.7 6.1
Level of land prices and land scarcity 6.6 5.8 7.9**** 6.5
Level of exit barriers 9.0 9.3 8.3 9.0*****
Average scores on a scale from 1 (most important) to 10 (least important).
* Significantly more important than other nine variables
** Significantly more important than eight other variables
*** Significantly more important than in other two cases
**** Significantly less important than in other two cases
***** Significantly less important than other variables