European Transport / Trasporti Europei (1998) 08/09

Traffic flows are no longer appropriate indicators for ports impact on local economies: containerisation, footloose industries, growing port competition, surplus transfer from ports to MTOs, cause gaps between port performances and local benefits. These changes witness a vertical and horizontal integration turning into a global market structure, where returns on port investments may well be lost locally. While growing external costs suggest concerns about "sustainable ports" for general and local economic systems. An economic-territorial trade-off is needed, where benefits and costs are optimised at all scales, and each local system decides its level of involvement in port facilities.

The paper aims at pointing out the role of maritime and port industries of European Countries. A particular attention is paid to Italy within the global economic competition context. Moreover, the paper stresses the importance for merchant fleets in running intermodal ports and terminals. In Italy, the lack of an important fleet is the reason why almost all terminals containers are run by foreign company (e.g. Genoa, Trieste and Taranto). In this context, the recent law that establishes an off-shore register seems to result rather ineffective due to the choice of a fiscal discount based on taxable income and not on a more objective base (for all actors playing the global competition) such as the registered tonnage.