Small-and-medium-sized container terminals have been constructed around established big-sized terminals, which are also expanding their capacity to server their customers with more efficiency.
However, the small-and-medium-sized container terminals have some restrictions when it comes to cargo volume and the number of vessels that they can attract. At the same time, due to the strategy of Korean government to attract private investment in ports, those terminals are funded and operated by construction companies, which have very limited experience or domain knowledge in container terminal operation business. This kind of situation and background makes them more difficult in winning customers like shipping companies.
In order to be more competitive and attract more customers in this situation, the newly developed terminals can offer differentiated services for shipper companies and large-scale shipping lines. They can provide extensive logistics service for shipper companies and play a role of shipper with big volume for big shipping lines.
In the past, logistics services from cargo booking to stevedoring had been provided by respective logistics service providers. The small-and-medium-sized terminals can offer the one-stop logistics services to help shipper companies save their logistics cost. This strategy will enable the terminals to collect more cargoes from such companies.
On the other hand, the terminals can offer services as large-scale shippers based on the cargo volume that they collect from shipper companies. They can provide domestic shipper information, to some extent, for foreign forwarders, so that the forwarders can build a partnership with the terminals.
This kind of differentiated strategy for their customers will make the newly developed terminals be more competitive in the port business.