Topic: What is An International Maritime Centre?
by Prof. Dr. Ma Shuo, Vice President (International), World Maritime University, Sweden

About the topic:

About half a dozen cities have chosen “international maritime centre” (IMC) as one of the development goals. Yet each city often gives a different description of what an international maritime centre is. As almost all aspects of “visible” shipping (from seaborne trade, seafaring, to shipbuilding, ship-owning, ship-operation and ship-scrapping) are today by and large provided by Asian countries, it is just natural that many of those cities are from Asia. While looking for a unique or a universally accepted definition is unnecessary and therefore not our purpose, having a clearer idea and a discussion about the key elements that make an IMC is meaningful.

According to a recent research, IMCs can be divided into three types or categories, namely: maritime production-based, maritime service-based and maritime knowledge-based. By production, we mean the demand and supply for the maritime transport, or basically, cargo and ships; By service, we mean the transport of cargo by ships and the related services; By knowledge, we mean three things: data/information (collecting/processing/analysing), decision making (headquarters, organizations, etc.), and innovation (new concepts, standards, methods, etc.).

What are the main characteristics of the different IMCs? What are the relations between them? Where are the relative positions of the various leading maritime cities vis-à-vis the three types of IMCs? And what are the key factors for such cities to become one of such IMCs? In this public lecture, attempts are made to address such questions and to, hopefully, clarify some of the doubts on this topic.

About the speaker:

Dr. Ma is a professor of Maritime Economics and Policy at World Maritime University (WMU). Since 2001, he has also been Vice-President (International) of WMU. Dr. Ma is an active teacher, researcher, writer and consultant in the area of maritime and port economics and policy. He has worked as visiting professor, external examiner, research fellow in a number of Asian and European Universities (eg. the University of Cardiff, Southampton Solent University, the University of Paris, Shanghai Maritime University, Dalian Maritime University, Wuhan University of Science and Technology, Technical University of Lisbon, Erasmus University, the University of Wales in Swansea, Chalmer University). He served as a Council Member of the International Association of Maritime Economist 1996-2000. He has been involved in many research projects for private as well as public organizations such as government agencies European Union and the United Nations. Dr. Ma has been responsible for two WMU Outreach MSc. Programmes in China. He obtained a PhD degree in economics in 1987 from the University of Paris.

For registration, kindly click HERE.

For further event information, please contact Ms. Zhang Guizhen at GZHANG004@e.ntu.edu.sg.