부산항 컨테이너터미널 운영사의 경영분석에 관한 연구

Abstract

The competition structure of port industry has been changed by the recent global financial crisis. In addition, the excessive competition of container terminals in Busan Port has been increasingly intensifying.

Since Busan New Port opened, the competitiveness for Busan North Port has been getting worse due to deteriorated facilities as well as geological condition, lower sea level. With these weakness, the volume of cargo handled at Busan New Port has been still on the rise while cargo handling volume at Busan North Port has fallen resulting in the gradual widening productivity gap.

Under this circumstances, container handling tariff has sharply decreased and terminal operators in Busan North Port suffer serious revenue deficit.

The overall study objective is to suggest effective methods to overcome the financial problems and improve the competitiveness of container terminal operators in order to set up co-prosperity and promote balanced and sustainable development between Busan North Port and Busan New Port.

This study analyzed and compared the financial status of 8 terminal operators in Busan Port categorized in storage and support activities for transportation.

This study sheds light on this issue by conducting an empirical analysis using two methodologies.

The first method is twelve financial ratio analysis incorporated by financial indicator applied to business analysis. Each index has a limitation to show business performance by itself. So as an comprehensive approach, Index Method is used to evaluate summated ratings in respect of each indicator.

The second analysis used in this study is A. Wall's Index Method and Trant's Index Method for the comparative business analysis among the terminal operators in Busan Port.

In the process of analyzing key financial ratios of the terminal operators in comparison with an average ratio of the H52, Storage and support activities for transportation industry in Korea, total numerical value is created. With Index Method, each numerical value on a maximum of 100 points is compared to the others in order to develop a more objective criteria of judgement of collective business performance.

Looking into the result from the analysis, the profit trend, growth rate and turnover are found to be quite different between North Port and New Port in Busan. All related matters are caused by the current situation where Busan North Port is getting worse in financial position while Busan New Port appears the opposite. Also, the debt ratios, total borrowings and bonds payable to total asset of the terminal operators in Busan North Port were much higher than Busan New port. In case of equity ratio of Busan North Port operators, it is shown much lower than standard ratio.

This study points out the sluggish sales in Busan North Port and suggests effective solutions to the problems including measures to increase revenue as well as reduce operational cost.

The findings of this study provide meaningful implications for improvement plans as follows.

First, to make the maximum revenue in Busan Port needs to become a maritime logistics hub particularly of transshipment. In order to attract more transshipment freight and improve the transshipment competitiveness it is necessary to develop the ITT(Inter Terminal Transfer) system for saving transfer cost among container terminal operators in Busan.

Secondly, the legal basis for tariff approval system out to be established. The tariff in Busan North Port has been significantly dropped due to fierce competition between container terminal operators to accommodate more vessels and increase volume of cargo. To minimize the price gap compared with Singapore, Shanghai and Ningbo, major ports nearby Busan Port, the legal basis must put in a place. This effort will be a robust foundation to make overall tariff stabilization in gradual progress based on mutual agreement of parties involved.

Third, terminal operators need to change their operating system by utilizing Big data for securing port safety and transforming into Eco-friendly port. The big data analysis related to calling pattern and expenditure of shipping company contributes to enhancing the productivity as well as forging disaster recovery system. In particular, disaster recovery system is expected to maximize credibility of port operation and ensure high performance of port business through the immediate response with a computing database.

Forth, to make operation expense minimize, the fixed rental system is changed into volume linked terminal lease scheme with throughput ceiling system for each terminal operator. This scheme will support to mitigate the excessive competition and eventually improve the financial structure by saving the fixed cost.

Lastly, terminal operators need to induce outsourcing service for non-core functions of terminal operation to save the labor cost. The outsourcing workers should be mobilized if needed on the basis of proper deployment for securing flexibility of manpower structure.

With regard to the result from this study, it is found that the polarization of financial profit for terminal operators in Busan Port is caused by excessive competition and different financial structure. Therefore it remains critical that the problem facing Busan Port should be solved with not only stable supply of volume but also continuous management improvement in financial structural approach.

We expect that additional and feasible alternatives are suggested from the study to container terminal operators in Gwangyang and Inchun for achieving stabilization in Busan Port.