The Future Maritime Operating Environment and the Role of Naval Power

esources) there will be continued growth in the number of larger ships, with those capable of
carrying greater than 7,600 TEUs growing six times faster than smaller vessels. 49
Table 1: World Container Fleet Development, 1990–2016 (in ‘000s TEUs).
Source: Ocean Shipping Consultants, Container Traffic Forecast Study – Port Metro Vancouver,
June 2014 [www.robertsbankterminal2.com/wp-content/uploads/Port-Metro-Vancouver-
Container-Traffic-Forecast-Ocean-Shipping-Consultants-June-2014.pdf], p. 105.
Seaborne trade is also a motor for national and regional economies. The continuing growth of
containerization and of energy exports will lead to the further development of new ports and will
create pressure—economic and political—for the upgrade of established ones. Indeed, a failure to
keep pace with both the increase in the size of container ships and the volume of traffic risks
ships looking to dock elsewhere with economic consequences for established populations. As
seaborne trade is a driver of economic expansion, it has led to extensive investments in
infrastructure along coasts and within market centres inland. 50 Consequently, there has been a
snowballing of port upgrades and expansion leading to the situation where half of the world’s
wealthiest cities are ports. 51
China, in particular, has benefitted from this approach. Since 2000, Beijing has invested heavily
in port infrastructure to link inland cities with global markets upon which the country’s economic
development depends. 52 As a result, nine of the 25 of the world’s busiest ports are currently found
in that country, some of which were purpose-built for containerised trade (see Table 2). As an
indicator of the global economic transformation that has taken place and is ongoing, until 2002
the distinction of being the busiest port belonged to Rotterdam: today that ranking is held by
Shanghai. Other countries have acted similarly to that of China in modernising and expanding the
capacity of sea ports, such as the US in its development of west coast ports. The largest of those
being Los Angeles and Long Beach; however, each handle approximately one half of the volume
49 Lloyd’s Register Group et. al., Global Marine Trends 2030, p. 81. Some container ships now being built
are capable of carrying 20,000 TEUs.
50 Transportation networks are not a sufficient condition for economic and social development. However, a
lack of infrastructure that links a region to a transport network will have a significant retarding effect on
economic growth. This argument is made in Jean-Paul Rodrigue, The Geography of Transport Systems,
Third Edition (Routledge: London, 2013), p. 229.
51 Lloyd’s Register Group et. al., Global Marine Trends 2030, p. 32.
52 Hoovestal, Globalization Contained, p. 58.
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