The Formation and Development of Port Logistics

Maritime transportation, referred to as sea transportation for short, has a history of thousands of years, and its development is closely related to the progress of shipbuilding and navigation technology. It is the most important mode of transportation in world trade, and more than two thirds of the total world trade is completed by sea. The rapid development of maritime transportation has become an important means for human beings to develop economy and trade. Port is the starting point and end point of water transportation, and it is also the assembly place with the largest cargo volume; With the development of maritime transportation, ports have gradually developed.

(a) Early maritime transport and port development

Maritime transportation developed with the development of international trade, separated from international trade in modern times, and influenced and restricted by international trade and navigation technology.

Historical data prove that there was prosperous shipping in the Mediterranean region in 7000 BC. At that time, the port was only in the Jianghu area. Choose a place with suitable bank slope, slow water flow, good shelter from the wind and stable water surface, and you can rely on ships. It is even more necessary to use natural sheltered bays or estuaries as ports to facilitate the berthing of ships. In this way, ships can avoid wind and waves and wait for favorable wind direction and weather. At that time, due to the small scale, small draft, small quantity and small passenger and freight volume, the requirements for loading and unloading speed were not very high.

With the birth of slavery, the main commodities of international trade were slaves and luxury goods, so the geographical distribution of trade centers at that time was in the powerful cities of slave countries and their colonies. In the west, there were Phoenicia and Carthage first, then to ancient Greece and Rome, and the trade center has always been on the Mediterranean coast. The territory of ancient Phoenicia was roughly equivalent to Lebanon now, because it was located in Pakistan and the Mediterranean Sea, which was very conducive to the development of commercial and maritime activities. Phoenician city-states appeared in 3000 BC. Phoenicians were an excellent commercial people in ancient times. They deal in wood, wine, dyes, etc., and sell slaves in large quantities. Phoenicians built the oldest ports (Gil Port and Sidon Port) on the east coast of the Mediterranean, Sardinia and Sicily, and on the north coast of Africa.

Carthage was a colony established by Phoenicians on the coast of North Africa in 900 BC. At that time, it also became a trade center along the Mediterranean coast. At the same time, an Al seaport was created in the Nile Delta, and Alexandria was later established there. In ancient Greece, maritime traffic and port construction developed greatly (Knossos Port and Mesala Port).

With the development of economy, people began to expand transportation and trade. Around 1 century, after the Roman Empire conquered the Mediterranean coast, its forces reached the Red Sea and Persian Gulf, and based in Alexandria, actively explored maritime trade with the East. Roman merchant ships entered the Indian Ocean on a large scale. It is said that in Augustus' time, 120 merchant ships set sail from the Red Sea to India every year to buy goods from eastern countries. However, in China, in the Han Dynasty, the maritime traffic route to India was opened in the 2nd century BC, and by the AD 1 century, merchants of the Han Dynasty had frequently arrived in South India. Almost at the same time, India, an ancient civilization country in South Asia, is also strengthening its overseas business expansion, especially in Southeast Asia. Since the 1 century, Indian businessmen have sailed eastward to Southeast Asia and China. China, Rome and India meet in the Indian Ocean, which makes the maritime exchanges and trade between the East and the West unprecedentedly busy.

The port of Antium and the port of Tum-Lize built during the Roman Empire proved that the Romans had a high degree of technical culture and engineering art. First, protective buildings with vertical sections were built here. From the overall layout, these ports are similar to modern ports.

13. During the Renaissance, with the rapid development of trade and shipping, ports were built in Holland, Italy, Spain and Britain.

/kloc-in the 0/5th century, great progress has been made in navigation technology and shipbuilding. With the development of shipbuilding, the transformation and application of compass, the progress of navigation technology and the development of maritime trade, maritime transportation came into being as a form of transportation. Coastal cities have become new trade centers. At that time, China had reached the Ming Dynasty, and the trade center had been transferred to Guangzhou, Quanzhou and Hangzhou. From 65438 to 0405, Zheng He of the Ming Dynasty in China made seven voyages to the Western Ocean, visited more than 30 countries in Asia and Africa, and sailed as far as Somalia and Kenya in East Africa south of the equator. Carry a lot of gold and silver, silks and satins, porcelain, etc. in exchange for spices, ivory and precious stones. Every time we set sail, the number of ships, the length of the hull and the number of people were unprecedented at that time.

/kloc-since the 0/5th century, capitalist production has sprouted in some cities along the Mediterranean, and handicrafts and commercial trade in some countries in southern Europe have developed to a considerable extent. Businessmen are eager to expand overseas markets in order to gain more wealth. 1492, the Italian Columbus discovered the new continent of America. 15 19, Portuguese navigator Magellan led five ships and 265 crew members, achieving the first round-the-world voyage in human history. These explorations are collectively referred to as "geographical discovery". In this way, a new east-west trade route was finally opened up, bypassing Africa or South America from Europe and reaching Asia. After the geographical discovery, the European market was greatly opened, and the scope of international trade expanded from the Mediterranean Sea, the North Sea and the Baltic Sea to the Atlantic Ocean, America, India, China and South Asia. At that time, Europe imported raw silk, silk, cotton, rubber and tea from the East, while exporting iron, wool and flax. Sugar, tobacco, etc. Imported from the United States, the East and the United States have become European trade markets.

In short, in the 15 ~ 17 century, due to the discovery of the new continent and the capture of colonies, the rapid development of trade and shipping led to the need to establish large ports. With the increase of the number and scale of ships, the seaport has gradually developed.

(b) Modern and modern world shipping

/kloc-in the 0/9th century, maritime transportation has made great progress. 1807, the world's first steam ship was born, which injected new vitality into the ancient shipping industry. Most of the early industries in capitalist countries set up factories along navigable waterways, which made the development of water transport have a great influence on the industrial layout at that time. At the same time, due to the geographical limitation of international trade (far from the sea), coupled with the large volume and low cost of maritime transportation, two-thirds of international trade volume is transported by sea.

The two world wars and major shipwrecks in the 20th century accelerated the pace of scientific and technological progress, among which, the maritime transport played an important role: from wireless communication to satellite communication, and then to the global shipwreck safety system; The design and manufacture of ships have also made great progress in large-scale and high-speed. Hundreds of thousands of tons of oil tankers, bulk carriers and fast passenger ships with a speed of tens of nautical miles per hour are sailing all over the world.

After the Second World War, the world economy gradually transited to integration. Objectively, industries, agriculture, raw materials and processing industries in different countries and regions have formed a certain degree of professional division of labor, and the number of international passenger and cargo exchanges has been increasing. Among them, ocean transportation is the main way of international cargo transportation in the world. In the early 1980s, the international shipping volume in the world accounted for about 82% of the total international freight volume, accounting for 94% in terms of freight turnover. The number of ships in world shipping increased from 85 million gross tons in 1950 to 350 million gross tons in 1973. At the same time, the port has also been modernized.

Judging from the history of world port development, ports mainly develop with the development of shipping. Generally speaking, the development of world ports can be divided into three stages.

The first stage is 18 century ago, the port was only used as a place for ship loading and unloading activities.

The second stage is from the end of 18 to the middle of the 20th century. The function of the port has been extended to the trade field and entrepot function, that is, the port is no longer a place for ships to engage in loading and unloading activities, but a territory for trade activities, providing convenient conditions for entrepot trade.

The third stage began in 1950s and 1960s. With the industrial technology revolution, the port industry has risen rapidly. With the help of the advantages of the port, export processing industry and free trade industry will be built in the port area, and the port will be organically combined with urban development and export processing industry, making the port a comprehensive quasi-government area integrating distribution center, trade center, financial center and industrial center. With the development trend of complete commercialization, the port has gradually developed into a transportation center and logistics platform for international trade. Its main business scope ranges from cargo loading and unloading, warehousing and ship berthing services, to cargo processing, reloading and ship-related industrial and commercial services, and has been extended to the comprehensive distribution service of goods from the dock to the land behind the port. Ports have gradually become a unified economic entity integrating transportation and trade.

Development of China Maritime Port

1. Early maritime transport and port development in China.

China has a long history of shipping. As early as the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, there were warships between Wu and Yue, and water transportation was very frequent, so ports came into being. At that time, there was Jieshi Port (now Qinhuangdao Port) along the Bohai Sea. In the early Warring States period, the ancients used compasses to identify the direction at sea, and later spread to the west through Arabia, making important contributions to the development of world navigation technology.

In the Han Dynasty, there were frequent maritime trade activities between Guangzhou Port, Xuwen Port and Hepu Port and foreign countries.

In the Tang Dynasty, there were "shipping companies" to manage foreign trade and levy taxes on merchant ships coming to China. Yangzhou Port along the Yangtze River has the characteristics of both a seaport and a river port. In the Tang Dynasty, it was a developed international trade port.

In the Song Dynasty, there was a "Ship Administration Department" to manage shipbuilding and other affairs. Guangzhou, Quanzhou, Hangzhou and Mingzhou (now Ningbo) were the four major seaports in the Song Dynasty.

In the Ming Dynasty, Zheng He led a huge fleet to the Western Ocean for seven times, reaching more than 30 countries, covering Southeast Asian countries and Africa, as far as the east coast of Africa. This feat predates the history of European navigation by centuries. Later, in order to prevent the Japanese invasion, the sea ban policy was implemented.

The Qing government maintained the policy of sea ban, closed all ports except Guangzhou in 1757, strictly controlled foreign trade and ships going to and from China, and prohibited foreign trade.

3. Overview of modern and modern shipping industry and ports in China.

/kloc-at the beginning of the 0/9th century, world capitalism rose. Britain and other old capitalist countries, with gunboats as the precursor and merchant ships as the tools, enthusiastically searched for markets around the world and expanded their colonies. China, with its vast territory and rich products, has become an important target of their pirate colonial plunder. At that time, Guangzhou was the only port open to the outside world in China, and the number of foreign merchant ships registered by Guangzhou Customs increased year by year. However, British businessmen soon felt that the trade situation was quite unfavorable to them. They have nothing to exchange for China's goods, and it is difficult to offset the money needed to buy a lot of tea and raw silk from China only by sending limited silver and cotton from India. As a result, Britain has a huge trade deficit with China.

So Britain began to dump opium to China on a large scale. 1842 After the First Opium War, the imperialist powers monopolized China's maritime transport for a long time.

Under the coercion of western powers, the Qing government had to end the long-standing situation of Guangzhou's one-port trade and began to open major coastal ports. This opening-up process lasted for decades, which made the coastal customs and ports completely controlled by foreigners and lost the navigation rights of inland rivers. In addition, in order to develop trade, various localities have also opened some ports on their own. In this way, a number of commercial ports open to the outside world have been formed along the coast, along the river and along the border of China. By the 1920s, in the annual customs trade report of the State Administration of Taxation of China, more than 40 open commercial ports had local customs offices and customs clearance reports. Most of the ports were forced by external forces, which was a reflection of China's humiliation. But objectively, it has promoted the modernization and economic extroversion of various regions in China. Whether it is a commercial port open along the coast or a commercial port open along the border, it occupies a certain position in the economic development of various regions, but more importantly, it is a coastal port. From north to south, there are mainly Anton (now Dandong), Dalian and Niuzhuang (now West Haicheng) in Northeast China, Tianjin, Yantai and Qingdao in North China, Shanghai, Ningbo and Wenzhou in Central China, Fuzhou, Xiamen, Shantou, Guangzhou and Wuzhou in South China, Danshui and Dagou (now Kaohsiung) in Taiwan Province Province, and Hong Kong under British rule and Macau under Portuguese rule at that time. Chongqing and Wanxian in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, Hankou and Jiujiang in the middle reaches, and Wuhu, Nanjing and Zhenjiang in the lower reaches are also important ports for opening to the outside world. Coastal ports are the main hubs for China to develop transportation and trade links with foreign countries and coastal areas of China. On the one hand, port cities have formed prosperous inter-port trade through close maritime ties, and the material exchanges between China's northern and southern regions and coastal areas and the mainland are more frequent. On the other hand, China's export materials are exported to all countries in the world through these ports, and imported materials from all countries are imported to China through these ports.

When New China was founded, China's maritime transportation, especially ocean transportation, was still blank, and there was no fleet of its own. Facing the imperialist blockade, China's maritime transportation is carried out under very difficult conditions.

In the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China, the port was shallow and silted, and the wharf was in disrepair and almost paralyzed. There are only 60 10,000-ton berths in China (except Taiwan Province Province), the total length of the wharf coastline is only over 20,000 meters, and the annual total throughput is only over 5 million tons. Most ports are in a primitive state, and loading and unloading are carried by people.

In 1960s, China began to develop the shipping industry in a planned way and actively restored its ports.

In the past 50 years, China's shipping industry has made great achievements. At present, China international shipping fleet has more than 2,500 ships with a deadweight of over 37 million tons, ranking fifth in the total transport capacity of world shipping. The basis of marine transportation is seaport, and the development of marine transportation in China cannot be separated from the rapid development of coastal ports. At the same time, with the recovery and development of water transport, the port has also entered a prosperous stage. Since the founding of New China, port development has gone through five different periods:

The first development period of China's port construction was from 1950s to 1970s. Due to the imperialist blockade at sea and the fact that economic development is mainly inland, transportation mainly depends on railways, and the development of maritime transportation is slow. At present, the development of ports is mainly based on technical transformation and recycling.

The second development period of China port construction was the 1970s. With the development of China's foreign relations, foreign trade has expanded rapidly, foreign trade at sea has soared, and the cargo throughput of coastal ports is insufficient. At the beginning of 1973, Premier Zhou issued the call of "changing the face of the port in three years", which started the first climax of port construction.

The third development period of China's port construction is from the end of 1970s to 1980s. China's economic development has entered a new historical period. In the sixth five-year plan (198 1- 1985), the government of China listed the port as the focus of national economic construction. Port construction entered the second construction climax.

The fourth development period of China port construction is from the end of 1980s to 1990s. With the implementation of the reform and opening-up policy and the development and changes of the international shipping market, China began to pay attention to the deepwater and specialized construction of berths. A relatively complete water transport operation, management, construction and scientific research system has been initially formed. The fifth development period of China port construction is from the late 1990s to the early 20th century. With the rapid development of economic globalization, trade liberalization and international transportation integration, modern information technology and network technology make modern logistics industry rapidly grow into a new industry full of vitality, potential and unlimited development space around the world. Modern port is no longer a simple place for goods exchange, but an important link in the international logistics chain. In order to meet the needs of China's entry into WTO and the development of modern logistics, and remain invincible in the fierce competition, all major ports in China are actively carrying out research on port development strategies to comprehensively improve the port level.

After five large-scale port constructions, at present, China has initially established a port system with reasonable layout, distinct levels, complete functions, giving consideration to rivers and seas, and opening to the outside world. China Port has reached a new level in scale, specialization and management.