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

Chapter 12 – Analyzing Strenghts and Weaknesses of Seaport Clusters 185
The port cluster of Durban possesses various strengths. First, the level of internal
competition is high, compared to Richard’s Bay. Second and third, Durban is more diverse
and has more knowledge spill-overs than Richard’s Bay. Fourth, the level of trust is high;
fifth, Durban is well endowed with leader firms; and sixth, relatively many customers and
suppliers are present in Durban.
These strengths and weaknesses show that Durban is a strong cluster. The cluster
economies are stronger in Durban than in Richard’s Bay. However, the concentration of
cluster activities has led to diseconomies of high land prices and congestion. Addressing
those two weaknesses is a central challenge for improving Durban’s performance. Only data
on container throughput and overall throughput are available. Both are given in Table 81.
Table 81: Market share of Durban, total throughput and containers in South Africa
Year Durban
Total cargo (tons) Containers (TEU)
Richards
Bay Saldanha Cape town
Port
Elizabeth Durban Cape town
Port
Elizabeth
1990 24.4% 49.9% 15.6% 4.9% 4.0% 68.0% 19.6% 10.0%
1991 23.4% 52.7% 145.0% 5.1% 3.5% 68.5% 20.1% 9.0%
1992 22.9% 52.7% 14.1% 5.3% 3.7% 65.4% 21.7% 10.4%
1993 20.4% 55.6% 15.4% 4.8% 2.9% 66.7% 21.2% 9.8%
1994 19.8% 53.3% 16.1% 5.7% 3.1% 65.5% 21.0% 10.8%
1995 19.3% 54.6% 16.2% 5.5% 3.7% 63.7% 22.4% 10.9%
1996 21.9% 54.7% 14.2% 4.7% 3.7% 65.5% 20.7% 11.1%
1997 20.6% 55.1% 14.9% 5.0% 3.7% 64.8% 20.9% 11.9%
1998 20.4% 56.3% 14.8% 4.4% 3.8% 65.2% 19.7% 12.4%
1999 18.2% 57.3% 14.9% 4.9% 4.3% 61.1% 20.7% 15.8%
2000 20.1% 56.2% 14.5% 4.7% 4.1% 64.4% 19.7% 14.3%
Source: National Port Authority of South Africa (2003)
This table shows that Durban has lost market share overall, but almost exclusively because
coal exports increased substantially. These volumes are handled in Richard’s Bay. In
containers, Durban still has a dominant market share, only Port Elisabeth managed to gain
some market share. However, this is mainly because of increasing volumes in their captive