Prospect of Premier Port Competition in East Asian Region *

Since early 2000s, China's major ports developed port facilities rapidly. Within a very short period, China succeeded to construct independent port system which does not rely on the nearby countries ports. To the contrary, neighboring countries' major ports with China confronted new challenge due to the Chinese progressive ports policy. Various measures are being introduced and practiced to cope with the challenge. However, the future prospect of the neighboring countries' major ports with China is not bright. In this paper, the anticipated prospect of the competition between Chinese ports and neighboring countries' major ports is to be suggested.For the appraisal criteria on the prospect toward Premier Port status, four elements, which are composed of geographical advantages, scale of container volumes, cost advantage, and national port policy, were selected, and used. As the result of the assessment, the port of Shanghai was evaluated as holding the highest probability toward Premier Port rather than any other East Asian major ports. Finally, it was recommended that the neighboring countries major ports with China which are confronted with the challenge from the Chinese ports, would be better to transform their strategies from current competition and quantity oriented policy to cooperation and value oriented policy.