» Home        Port Policy and the Asia-Pacific Gateway and Corridor Initiative Ron Hirshhorn, Hirshhorn Consulting, Canada Abstract British Columbia’s ports are clearly major components of Canada’s Pacific Gateway and play a key role in this country’s efforts to capture the benefits of strong Asian growth. The focus of this paper is on the policies that will generate the required incentives for the efficient provision of port services. This paper first considers what the general experience of countries that have engaged in port reform can teach us about the policy requirements for efficient port performance. It is suggested that international experience with devolution and commercialization highlights the need to give attention to three issues: the requirements for an effective governance regime; the objectives set out for the devolved organization; and the mechanisms that may be required to control the market power of port service providers. Each of these issues is examined in the paper and the different types of regimes that may emerge from the policy response to all three issues are discussed. Against the background of these representative regimes involving quite different pressures for port efficiency, the paper examines the policy framework governing Canada Port Authorities. There is an investigation of whether reforms are needed and, if so, what actions are required to strengthen the policy incentives for port efficiency and reinforce the other initiatives intended to help Canada capitalize on the opportunities from the growth in Asian-North American trade. « Back to Abstracts  ©2007 Center for Transportation Studies, UBC. All rights reserved. | Privacy Policy