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state has styled itself as the ``global port'' and the most

ecient maritime transport center of the globally dy-

namic AsiaPacic region.

This paper addresses in both theoretical and empiri-

cal contexts, the synergistic nature of the global pro-

duction system, container-based maritime transport,

and ICT to explain the rise of Singapore as a global

port. A brief, but essential theoretical argument for the

inclusion of transport and ICTs within the production

rather than the service sector is rst oered. Only then

might we more fully appreciate the second goal of ex-

amining the inter-dependent role of ICT-based con-

tainer transport in the spatial articulation of goods

along the global production conveyor belt. While this

theoretical introduction is required to better understand

the empirical sections of the paper, two equally impor-

tant reasons qualify as well. First, the structural dis-

tinction between manufacturing and services has

become increasingly problematic (Jussawalla et al.,

1992; Sayer and Walker, 1992), and this is particularlytrue with reference to transport and communications.

Walker (1988, p. 385) perceptively makes clear when

arguing for a unied approach to industrial organiza-

tion and production, that we must dispose of ``some old

and deep ways of thinking about such taken-for-granted

categories as the shipping industry''. Second, the syn-

ergistic role of maritime transport and ICT in the

emerging global economy has not attracted sucient

analytical attention. Perhaps with a handful of excep-

tions (Airriess, 1993; Haynes et al., 1997; Janelle and

Buethe, 1997; Rimmer and Comtois, 1997; Rodrigue

et al., 1997; Rimmer, 1998), the maritime transport

function in the global economic restructuring literature

has always been conceptualized as a given at best. The

invisible nature of transport and communications has

perhaps fostered this bias. Again, Walker (1988, p. 87)

rightfully observes that this absence in the literature is

because industries such as shipping are so mobile and

nomadic that they ``leave so faint a mark on the land''.

Hillis (1998) too, perceptively points out that commu-

nications has always occupied a ``poor step-sibling sta-

tus'' in geographical research because the latter is

perceived as an even more invisible tool in a discipline

that has traditionally studied the tangible and visible.

The balance and bulk of this paper focuses uponexplaining the role of a Singapore-centered TNC re-

gional production network and ICT in the emergence of

this city-state as a rst-order global container transport

hub.1 The argument is situated within the context of the

proactive ``developmental state'' (Castells, 1992) and

thus challenges assumptions concerning the declining

economic role of the state in the age of globalization

(Amin and Thrift, 1997; Dicken, 1997; Martin and

Sunley, 1997). The early adoption and application of

ICT by the Port of Singapore Authority (PSA) is viewed

as an integral slice of the larger ``institutional thickness''

of a knowledge-based economy to ensure the process of

territorially embedding regional TNC production strat-

egies of simultaneous concentration and dispersion.2

The PSA promoted the ``embeddedness'' of TNC pro-

duction strategies by developing a complex hub and

spoke port in part to dovetail with the economic logic of

container shipping rms that require the qualities of

route rigidity and exibility based upon mainline and

feeder vessels, respectively. In this sense, ICT as applied

to the creation of a global container transport hub has

been adopted as a development tool to transform Sin-

gapores space economy to remain regionally competi-

tive. An empirical analysis of the role of maritimetransport policy within the larger context of Singapores

ICT-based national development policies has surpris-

ingly not received its deserved attention (Corey, 1991;

Jussawalla et al., 1992; Mansell and Jenkins, 1992; Ho,

1996; Perry et al., 1997). Lastly, this paper examines the

privatization of the PSA and its subsequent emergence

as a transnational owner, manager, and operator of

container terminals around the world. While traditional

explanations, most of which revolve around forces of

regional and global competitiveness possess adequate

power to explain the globalization of the PSA, their

contextualization within the processes of economic

1 The focus upon ICT does not imply that other factors such as the

subordination of dock labor or the marshalling of substantial land

dedicated to the construction of container terminals is of little

consequence to the rise of Singapore as a global container hub. Under

the hegemony of the developmental state, these other factors are

simply assumed to be controlled for the purposes of economic growth.

With labor, for example, ve of the six port worker unions were de-

registered and digested into the de-politicized and government-

controlled National Trades Union Congress (Chia, 1989a). A poten-

tially contentious labor environment so often associated with dock

unions was replaced by worker incentive bonus schemes and a team-

oriented work environment. Nor is it assumed that the deployment of

ICTs by the developmental state is solely responsible for the meteoric

rise of Singapore as a global container hub. The well worn axiom of

transport being a necessary, but not a sucient catalyst to promote

economic growth is certainly appropriate here.2 Anchored to the emerging school of socio-economics, the concept

of institutional thickness (Amin and Thrift, 1995, 1997) stresses the

importance of territorially dened, and thus embedded institutional

cultures or communities whose interactions stimulate local competitive

economic growth. Such interactive communities that share knowledge

and information, and thus mutual trust and collective goals might

include research parks, government agencies, nancial institutions,

business organizations, and rms. The development of institutional

thickness is especially important to localities that attempt to territo-

rially embed global economic activity through the exchange of

knowledge and information as resources. Unlike the traditional neo-

classical and overly economistic concept of agglomerative economies,

knowledge and information that is shared among actors comprising

this socially and territorially dened institutionalized community must

be perceived as factors of production.

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``glocalization'' (Swyngedouw, 1992) proves to be

equally as rewarding.

2. Global production, container transport, and ICT

Since the 1960s, the structural and locational attri-butes of corporate industrial activity have been glo-

balized as a result of decreased productivity gains and

a resulting ``prot squeeze'' (Holly, 1996, p. 24). This

new global production system has less to do with the

much touted exible production paradigm (Sayer and

Walker, 1992) characterized by the agglomerative and

inter-rm linked regional economies of the Third Italy

(Murray, 1983) or Toyota City (Cusumano, 1985), but

with the far more common dispersed form of manu-

facturing based on TNC assembly plants or sub-con-

tracting (Donaghu and Bar, 1990; Clark, 1993)

requiring long-distance inputs. Under conditions ofindustrial dispersal, the importance of production

units to be functionally integrated is imperative

because of distances between input suppliers as well as

between producers and consumers, temporal changes in

demand, and the desire to reduce inventory costs

through just in time (JIT) production (Estall, 1985;

Arnold and Bernard, 1989).

The emergence of the global economy required the

parallel development of ``enabling'' information and

transport technologies so that goods might be spatially

articulated across both time and space (Pederson, 1987;

Nijkamp and Saloman, 1989). From a Kondratie per-

spective that is based upon qualitative rather than

quantitative changes in economic cycles, it is not the

volume production of goods that has increased with the

advent of dispersed global production, but the com-

plexity of trade through increased spatial transactions

that requires more ecient information and transport

technologies. Indeed, the global expansion of economic

activity as a result of the crisis of overaccumulation and

devaluation of capital in the industrial core intensies

the transformation of transportation and communica-

tion technology infrastructure to improve the ow of

commodities, labor and money (Swyngedouw, 1993, p.

315). In the realm of container transport that is so de-pendent upon ICT to more eciently serve the spatial

and temporal requirements of global production, Ro-

drigue et al. (1997) refer to a ``long-wave maritime cy-

cle'' to describe the revolution in maritime transport

services and the territorial restructuring of ports that has

accompanied the fth Kondratie cycle. This restruc-

turing has materialized in the form of new inter-modal

gateways (Hayuth, 1987; Gulick, 1998; van Klink and

van den Berg, 1998) that function as hubs for a larger

network that ``facilitate connectivity between interacting

places'' (OKelly, 1998, p. 171).

2.1. Transport and ICT as productive forces

Under conditions of global sourcing, many interme-

diate inputs and nished inputs come from great dis-

tances, increasing the inherent costs of inventory,

warehousing, and transport associated with this ``ex-

tended conveyor belt'' (Hepworth and Ducatel, 1992, p.

6780). Manufacturers have thus been forced to become

experts in logistically coordinating the many inputs from

sub-contractors that eventually comprise a nished

product (Jussawalla et al., 1992). The production pro-

cess then has become far more information sensitive and

allows corporations to produce as well as sell ``every-

where at once'' (Robins and Gillespie, 1992, p. 157). As

the synergistic innovations of container transport and

ICTs are critical to a rms competitive advantage, in

part through reductions of transaction costs, they must

be viewed as a component of production. The literature,

however, treats these space-adjusting technologies that

increase mobility and accessibility as a service (OCon-nor, 1987; Britton, 1990; Daniels, 1991, 1995; Wood,

1991). Sheppard (Janelle and Beuthe, 1997), conceptu-

alizes the primary impact of ICTs being on process,

rather than on the products themselves.

While the characterization of ICT as a process is

certainly true, these technologies also function as a

means of production critical to the processing stages of a

kaleidoscope of industries (Amirahmadi and Wallace,

1995). Charles (1996) for example, conceptualizes ICT

as a ``productive force'' that is critical to coordinating

the various stages of the production process. Arguing

that a false dichotomy exists between industrial and

service sectors, Sayer and Walker (1992, p. 76) correctly

claim that in the endless pursuit of prot, capitalism has

engaged in a further division of labor to include indirect

labor inputs such as transport and communications to

extend ``production across time and space toward the

nal point of consumption''. Indeed, the static volume

of production relative to the dramatic expansion of

trade over the past 30 years is simply a process by which

direct labor has been replaced by indirect labor pro-

cesses. Possessing the ability to increase the use value of

manufacturing inputs, the transportcommunications

function of the global economy is perceived then as in-

separable from the entire production system (Walker,1988), production chain (Dicken, 1994), or value chain

(Porter, 1990).

Perhaps the most compelling argument for informa-

tion and transport being perceived as an integral part of

the production process originates in part from Marx

(Harvey, 1985). As transport and communications are

technologies that ``sell change of location as its product''

they belong ``to the productive forces itself'' (Harvey,

1985, p. 35). In addition, the space collapsing nature of

information technology (IT) and container transport

allow for the long-distance movement of goods across

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oceans in a regular, predictable, exible, and cost eec-

tive fashion which in turn increase the velocity of capital

turnover that otherwise would be less productive in the

form reserve stocks or inventory. In the former West

Germany, for example, the cost of inventory stocks was

$245 billion per year during the mid-1980s (Chinnery,

1988). As time rather than absolute space is critical to

the turnover of capital, technologies such as ICT cou-

pled with container vessels and the ``xed conguration

of space'' such as container port terminals are ``the only

means open to capital to overcome space'' (Harvey,

1985, p. 44). Indeed, the tensions inherent in capitalism

over the ``xity'' of manufacturing facilities and ``mo-

bility'' of capital, services, labor and goods are reduced

at xed transport gateways that command space ``to

facilitate greater movement for the remainder'' (Gra-

ham, 1998, p. 176). In this sense, container terminals

with their towering gantry cranes are highly symbolic of

the post-Fordist built environment.

2.2. Structural responses of maritime transport and ports

The parallel rise of the complex synergies of ICT and

container transport as indirect labor inputs to serve the

global production system cannot be understated. Much

like the spatial structure of TNC production, the mari-

time transport and ICT industries have exhibited the

simultaneous processes of agglomeration and dispersion

as well. The use of container technologies to increase a

rms productivity through the reduction of transaction

costs involved in long-distance trade did not emerge

until the late 1960s when fully dedicated container ves-sels were rst launched. From this inauspicious begin-

ning, the percentage of the worlds non-bulk trade that

was containerized increased from a small share of 6% in

1970 to a staggering 60% in 1995 (Lim, 1996, p. 2). To

continually keep unit costs down in an environment,

whereby operating expenses of a medium-sized or third-

generation vessel can exceed US$27,000 per day (Pear-

son, 1988), the capacity of vessels have doubled every

decade. In the late 1960s, the capacity of the largest

vessels was 1000 TEU, but by the late 1990s, 6000 TEU

vessels were becoming the standard (McLellan, 1997).3

Driving the increasing size of container vessels is costadvantage that accompanies economies of scale; the per

TEU cost savings of a 6000 TEU vessel over a 4000

TEU vessel is approximately 20% (CIY, 1997, p. 6).

Critical too, is the ability of port infrastructure to e-

ciently load and unload containers because mega-sized

vessels do exhibit diseconomies of size while in port.

Shipping TNCs must balance then, the cost of econo-

mies of size at sea with diseconomies of size while in port

(Cullinane and Khanna, 1999).

Due to the prot squeeze in an industry where prot

margins are low and xed costs are high, further econ-

omies of scale are being created through shipping line

alliances or outright mergers. These cooperative ar-

rangements allow for the sharing of resources, improve

capacity utilization, and access to other trade routes that

allow for the development of global transport strategies

to serve their global clients (Brooks et al., 1993; Ryoo

and Thanopoulou, 1999). For example, Singapores

Neptune Orient Line purchased American President

Lines in 1997 because of the latters world renown ex-

pertise in the logistics of multi-modal movement of

containers. Alliances or mergers also provide shipping

rms the economies of scale to better serve the pro-

duction strategies of TNCs through contracts that

greatly add value to their core business of the physical

transport of goods (Bowersox, 1990; Airriess, 1993;

Rimmer and Comtois, 1997). One of many examples is a1998 agreement between American President Lines and

General Motors to manage the production logistics of

its regional manufacturing plant in Thailand. Many

assembly parts are sourced globally, and the shipping

company plans both land and maritime transport

routes, track shipments and facilitates custom clearance

(SPT, 1998). No longer operating under the philosophy

of limited cost considerations, TNCs now view transport

as an integral component of modern business logistics

where ``productivity is assessed in terms of total con-

tribution to corporate prots and competitiveness''

(Hepworth and Ducatel, 1992, p. 59).

These mega-alliances and mergers within the shipping

industry in part aord the exibility of operations de-

manded by TNCs desiring speedier delivery times at

lower costs. What economies of scale means in the

shipping industry is that the largest carriers have in-

creased their share of global capacity; in 1980 the top 20

carriers accounted for 26% of slot capacity (Brooks

et al., 1993, pp. 236237), but by 1998 the share in-

creased to 53% (CIY, 1999, p. 5). The 1999 merger of the

Danish rm Maersk and US rm Sea-Land created a

mega-rm that in 1998 controlled 9.2% of global con-

tainer capacity, which is almost double the capacity of

Taiwans Evergreen, the second largest container ship-ping rm in the world.

The increased concentration of container ows

among a relative handful of container shipping TNCs is

matched by a parallel concentration among ports. The

concentration process was observed during the early

stages of the technological diusion process at the re-

gional level (Hayuth, 1981), but deconcentration of re-

gional container trac soon followed in some world

regions (Hayuth, 1988; Kuby and Reid, 1992; Notte-

boom, 1997). However, because of the extremely costly

nature of port ICT such as electronic data interchange

3 TEU refers to a 20 foot equivalent unit, which is the size of a

standard 20 foot container.

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(EDI) (Hepworth and Ducatel, 1992, p. 63; Janelle and

Beuthe, 1997), the spatial concentration of transport-

related information and accompanying container box

ow at the rst-order global container ports has in-

creased. Between 1987 and 1997, for example, the share

of global TEU throughput among the three busiest

container ports in the world increased from approxi-

mately 13.6% to 21% (CIY, 1989, 1999).

Much like the concentration of container trac, the

increased nodal concentration of information ows

within individual cities has been identied (Sassen, 1994),

and Atkinson (1996) has also described the trend

whereby the innovation of EDI and bar-coding systems

has allowed for the emergence of fewer, but larger goods

distribution facilities. A similar relationship between

transport associated with trade and the emergence of

global command cities has also been recognized (Owen,

1987; Airriess, 1993; Harris, 1994; Keeling, 1995).

Haynes et al. (1997, p. 95) refer to these handful of

emerging global ports as ``value-added transactionalhubs''. Recognizing the critical importance of ICT in the

movement of people, goods and information, Rimmer

and Comtois (1997, p. 210) categorize those Pacic Rim

command cities possessing high-order seaport, airport

and telecommunication hubs in a single urban place as

``logistical platforms''. Interestingly, of the three rst-tier

world cities devised by Friedmann (1986), only Los

Angeles is a major global container hub, and of the other

top 10 global container ports in 1998, only Singapore

and Hong Kong are among the ranks of Friedmanns 30

world cities. It is thus dicult to equate global container

hub and world city formations because even in the era of

global trade, maritime accessibility is only one of many

factors that inuence world city status (Rimmer, 1998).

3. The developmental state and the port of Singapore

Throughout the 1990s, the Singapore government has

touted the city-state as being a global port supported by

a sophisticated ICT infrastructure. Such a claim is cer-

tainly justied based upon the phenomenal increase in

container trac over the 19761998 period (Fig. 1).

Taking advantage of the meteoric rise in Pacic Rim-

based global trade over the past quarter century, Asia

Pacic ports experienced dramatic container trac

growth; in 1998 Singapore, Hong Kong, Pusan, South

Korea, and Kaosiung, Taiwan were four of the ve

busiest container ports in the world. Of these four ports,

Singapore has witnessed the most rapid annual growth

in container throughput. In 1976, Singapore rankedonly 21st in the world, but by 1997 replaced Hong Kong

to become the busiest container port in the world. In the

1995 World Competitiveness Report, Singapore was

ranked rst among 48 developed and newly industrial-

ized nations in terms of port infrastructure meeting

business requirements.

3.1. Enabling factors: a traditional view

A host of traditional enabling factors help to explain

Singapores position as a major global port. These

Fig. 1. Throughput trends of PacicAsias four busiest container ports. Sources: Rodrigue et al. (1997, p. 95), CIY (1989, 1992, 1997, 2000).

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include an unusually deep harbor for Southeast Asia

(Chia, 1989a) and its situation at the southern end of the

Malacca Straits that functions as a trac choke point

between the Pacic and Indian Oceans. Such single

factor explanations are a form of locational determin-

ism, however, because there are several points along the

same sea lane, which can develop into a hub port

(Dicken and Kirkpatrick, 1991; Lim, 1995, p. 90). In an

attempt to dispel the myth of Singapores economic

miracle, Hu (1994) makes a good case that the island s

modern economic fortunes are anchored in the colonial

period. Comparative advantage of specic factor en-

dowments are also enablers of signicant port develop-

ment. Port complexes, for example, tend to emerge

where factor proportions of transport exceeds the pro-

portion of land supply (Hoyle and Pinder, 1981; Ro-

drigue et al., 1997). As Porter (1990, p. 76) cautiously

points out, however, it is not only access to such factors

that determines commercial success, but ``the ability to

deploy them productively that takes on central impor-tance to comparative advantage''.

3.2. Enabling factors: the developmental state and the

PSA

The ability of Singapores maritime transport infra-

structure to so eciently dovetail with the city-states

development trajectory can be explained by the very

nature of the East Asian ``developmental state'' (Cas-

tells, 1992, p. 56). Such a state is dened as a govern-

ment that ``establishes as its principle of legitimacy its

ability to promote and sustain development, under-standing by development the combination of steady

high rates of economic growth and structural change in

the productive system, both domestically and in its re-

lationship to the international economy''. Factors that

dene the developmental state include the politics of

economic survival at the international level, an outward

orientation to their respective national economies, the

cultivation and control of an educated labor force, and

the ability of the national economy to adjust to struc-

tural changes in the global economy through techno-

logical upgrading, and market and product

diversication. The economic and political security

component of the developmental state in Singaporescase cannot be overstated. Being a territorially small

state with a limited population base relative to its

neighbors of Malaysia and Indonesia, the connection

between economic security and embedding the global in

its national space economy was expressed early in a

1972 speech by Foreign Minister Rajaratnam who

stated that ``an independent Singapore survives and will

survive because it has established a relationship of in-

terdependence in the rapidly expanding global economic

system'' (Acharya and Ramesh, 1993, p. 136). This

economic interdependence was not broad based, but

consisted of a package of carefully selected interlinked

niches that would keep the city-states economy one step

ahead of other regional economies (Regnier, 1991).

One of those interlinked economic niches is the

management of regional trade and maritime transport.

Indeed, Singapores port infrastructure was never con-

sidered as a separate element of the development pro-

cess, but as an integral and indispensable part of the

total development package. The rst PSA chairman in

the early 1970s stated that ``as Singapores industrial-

ization programme continues to grow, the parallel

growth of the port and its services will continue to in-

volve it as an inseparable partner of the countrys pro-

gress'' (Chia, 1989a, p. 318). While the Singapore

government implemented an explicit seaport policy at

the time of independence, such policies remained exible

to adjust to the changing regimes of national develop-

ment planning (Ho, 1996). In this sense then, transport

infrastructure is not explicitly conceived as a service, but

as a critical component of the entire production process.A distinctive characteristic of Singapore as a devel-

opmental state that directly impacted the role of the

PSA was the embracement of a free market economy

combined with state control in the form of public en-

terprises (PEs) during the 1950s and 1960s (Krause,

1989). One form of PE is the statutory board (SB), an

autonomous government agency specially charged to

promote specic economic development functions, in-

stitutionally separate from the Singapore Civil Service,

and expected to be nancially independent and prot-

able. By the 1980s, there existed some 86 SBs (Quah,

1985; Low, 1993) which by the early 1990s, along with

other government-linked companies, controlled some

two-thirds of domestic business capital (Perry et al.,

1997, p. 126). As an SB then, the PSA possessed a ra-

tionalized commercial environment that allowed it to be

far more competitive when compared to other regional

ports (Dick, 1985), and allowed it to rapidly conform to

the changing demands of national spatio-economic

planning that was increasingly becoming tied to the

penetration of global capitalism in Southeast Asia.

4. Laying the foundations 1960s and 1970s

The challenge of the PSA to serve the requirements of

post-Fordist global capital rst emerged during the

1970s as an economy based on import substitution was

replaced by the rst wave of TNC manufacturing in-

vestment during the late 1960s. Between 1963 and 1975,

the export share of total manufacturing sales increased

from 27% to 58%, respectively (Chia, 1989b, p. 256).

Whether capital or labor intensive, manufacturing was

dominated by TNCs; by 1975, establishments that were

at least half foreign-owned accounted for greater than

50% of gross output, value-added employment, and

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direct exports of the city-states manufacturing sector

(Chia, 1989b, p. 260).

The PSA response to this rst wave of TNC invest-

ment was rapid. After a half decade of inecientlyhandling containers from general cargo vessels, the PSA

constructed its rst dedicated container terminal in

1972. Today supporting six main berths and ve feeder

berths constructed mostly on reclaimed land, the Tan-

jong Pagar terminal (Fig. 2) became the center of an

expanding container trade; from 1972 to 1980, container

trac increased from 14,000 to 663,500 TEU, respec-

tively (Chia, 1989a, p. 326). With the only dedicated

container terminal in Southeast Asia, the PSA began

attracting break of bulk and lower-value exports from

neighboring countries to be shipped to its terminal for

consolidation into containers. An important multiplier

eect of the container terminal was the emergence of

Singapore as a regional warehousing center (Ho, 1996,

p. 39). Also important was the enactment of the Berth

Appropriation Scheme in 1979 that allowed shipping

lines to utilize their own loading equipment and labor at

specic berths.

5. Embedding the regional and global 1980s and 1990s

Singapore gained its initial advantage as a rst-tier

regional container port status based upon its domesti-

cally derived cargo demand anchored by the rst waveof TNC investment, as well as a transshipment or relay

point for containerized cargoes from surrounding

country feeder ports. This function was to change as

Singapores national space economy experienced a sub-

stantial structural transformation in the 1980s and

1990s. Following the recession years of 19851986

characterized by stagnating or negative GDP growth

rates (Lim, 1989), the government charted a new eco-

nomic direction in the form of a second industrial rev-

olution through technological upgrading to attract

higher value industry in an attempt to territorially em-

bed new TNC regional restructuring strategies (Rodan,

1993; Perry, 1995). This involved the dispersing of

lower-value-added assembly plants to lower land and

labor cost countries such as Malaysia, Indonesia andThailand, and the centralization of management, re-

search, nancial and logistics functions in Singapore. By

the mid-1990s, Singapore functioned as the site of ap-

proximately 2000 TNC regional headquarters. Some of

these TNCs were given special tax status under the

Operational Headquarters Scheme, and almost 70% of

regional headquarters were related to the manufacturing

sector (Perry et al., 1998). To assume the role of a

command and coordination center for the TNC regional

focus, the government was challenged to develop the

required ICT infrastructure to better manage trade.

To meet the inter-dependent needs of an ICT-based

regional command center for TNCs, and the develop-

mental states desire to internationalize the space econ-

omy, a new ``techo-economic paradigm'' (Mansell,

1993) or ``informational mode of development'' (Cas-

tells, 1989) was pursued. The challenge to informatize

the economy was not left to market forces as is the as-

sumption of neo-liberal development philosophies

(Castells, 1989; Batty, 1990; Porter, 1990), but as char-

acteristic of a globalizing developmental state, embed-

ding ICT as part of the public infrastructure engendered

an intervensionist stance on the part of state (Amin and

Tomaney, 1995). Government investment and planning

was critical to building a ``learning-based economy''(Storper, 1995) because of the recognition that taking

advantage of globalization to become one of a handful

of rst-tier global cities in the post-Fordist world re-

quires a workforce that is able to harness and take ad-

vantage of information-based knowledge as a resource

(Lever, 1997; Martin and Sunley, 1997). In the case of

Singapore, globalization has not meant the loss of the

states economic sovereignty, but such forces have been

harnessed to transform the national space economy.

State-corporate interdependency is the operative con-

cept because it is recognized by the state that the

Fig. 2. PSA container terminals and distriparks.The conguration of the Pasir Panjang Terminal reects the planned layout.

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organizational and locational logic of globalization

naturally leads to the spatial agglomeration of economic

activities (Moulaert et al., 1997).

The rst organized thrust in promoting an informa-

tional economy emerged before the mid-1980s recession

with the 1981 establishment of the National Computer

Board (NCB) whose rst aim was to informatize the

civil service, thus making the public sector the primary

user of computer technology. Central to NCBs re-

sponsibility was the promotion of an IT culture,

whereby an IT-based economy became a nationally

collective industrial goal to gain competitive advantage

(Riaz, 1997; Knight, 1995; Yeo, 1995; Corey, 1991). In

1986, the National IT Plan was implemented by the

NCB, and was followed by the publication of the IT2000

Report: Vision of an Intellegent Island in 1992. This

report identied ve strategic clusters of the national

information infrastructure, one of which is the Global

Hub cluster to enhance the emergence of Singapore as a

center for goods, services, and capital (Po, 1997).Critical to Singapores goal of becoming a competi-

tive global ICT hub was to abandon the isolated ICT

applications that during the early period were industry

specic, and create a national ICT infrastructure al-

lowing for the inter-industry exchange of information,

as well as an interfaced ICT network between domestic

and international activities (Porter, 1990). Towards that

goal, the EDI-based Tradenet was collaboratively

launched in 1989 by the NCB, the Trade Development

Board, the PSA, and the Civil Aviation Authority of

Singapore (Riaz, 1997). Tradenet automates import and

export documentation and accomplishes the critical

function of interfacing communication networks with

informational and organizational networks. By the early

1990s, Tradenet linked 8500 companies and 20 govern-

ment agencies (Mah, 1994, p. 28) and was used to

electronically process some 93% of trade and customs

declarations (Mansell and Jenkins, 1992, p. 397). The

growing IT personnel needs were satised by extensive

training programs that increased the sta pool from 850

in 1981 to 10,000 in 1995 (Yeo, 1995, p. 66). With a

compounded average annual growth rate of the IT in-

dustry at about 26% throughout much of the 1990s,

Singapore was ranked as the fourth most information-

driven economy and society in the world in 1999.Singapores seemingly overnight rise to the rst tier of

information-driven economies is related to what Amin

and Thrift (1995, 1997) refer to as ``institutional thick-

ness''. With the coordinating actor of the National

Computer Boards aggressively promoting the IT 2000

philosophy, this ``thickness'' refers to the widespread

adoption of IT by the public sector and the provisioning

of IT infrastructure for rms to create interactive net-

works among themselves. As a result, there emerges an

implicit feeling of common purpose among transacting

network participants which in turn contributes to a cu-

mulative process through which ``self-generating growth

poles'' (Amin and Thrift, 1997, p. 147) embedded in the

global economy emerge. Again, this collectivization or

institutionalization of information-based knowledge as

a resource to become more regionally or globally com-

petitive is simply not an economic byproduct of a vol-

atile global economy, but is linked to the cultivation of

trust and reciprocity, which are socially and geograph-

ically constructed. The recent creation of the Ministry of

Communications and Information Technology is an

evidence of not only the strategic importance placed on

ICT, but also the level of embeddedness in the institu-

tional culture as well.

5.1. PSAs wired infrastructural response

PSAs electronic infrastructural response to manage

the spatially exible production needs of TNCs became

more proactively competitive at the regional scale. First,

the PSA engaged in the rapid construction of containerterminals (Fig. 2). In the mid-1980s, the Keppel Ter-

minal came on line followed by the Brani Terminal in

1994. In 1995, these two terminals plus the earlier con-

structed Tanjong Pagar terminal supported 30 dedicated

main and feeder berths. In a visionary move, the PSA

constructed six container berths comprising Phase One

of the Pasir Panjang Terminal in 1998. When Phase Two

is completed in the next quarter century, this mega-

project will possesses 50 dedicated container berths,

more than doubling the ports container berth capacity

(PSAAR, 1995).

The in-house development of innovative ICT com-puter applications that matched new container terminal

construction was critical to expand hub formation be-

cause these software technologies provide maximum

spatial exibility of goods movement to the xity of

container terminal hardware. When interfaced with

Tradenet, these software allow Singapore to become

what some logistics experts euphemistically refer to as a

``Brainport'', where information ows intersect so that

decisions concerning supply-chain management might

be made (SPT, 1999). Indeed, the PSA operates the

largest single computerized network in the city-state,

the product of some S$1 billion of investments during

the 19901996 period.A host of synergistic computer systems have been

applied to increase the eciency of container terminal

operations, three of which are of prime importance.

TELEPORT provides port users with advanced ship-

ping information such as berthing schedules and de-

tailed cargo data before vessels enter Singapore

territorial waters. With links to other networked pri-

mary container ports around the world, TELEPORT

aords Singapore a strategic competitive advantage over

surrounding regional ports. Critical to Singapores

status as a maritime hub is the Computer Integrated

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Terminal Operations System (CITOS), which directs

container handling operations in a real-time fashion.

CITOS ensures the best discharging and loading

sequences and simultaneously takes into account the

next port of call and the stacking pattern of boxes in the

container yard. It is because of CITOS that the costly

port turnaround time for vessels is dramatically reduced.

CITOS is charged with the spatial transfer of a huge

volume of containers; each day 40 vessels discharge and

load 30,000 containers, and on any given day 100,000

containers occupy space in the container yards. More

importantly, CITOS aords the ecient transfer of

containers between vessels that serve the spatially com-

plex network of connections of which the feeder net-

work comprises a signicant slice (Fig. 3). A typical

third-generation vessel, for example, discharges 700

containers that are reloaded onto 30 second carriers for

transshipment to 40 ports. CITOS handles some 800,000

computer-based job instructions per day.

The power of these expert systems to enhance Sin-gapores trade eciency by capturing regional and

global ows is aorded through the spatial interfacing

or networking of otherwise separate technical, institu-

tional and organizational domains through the PSA's

1989 implementation of PORTNET (Fig. 4). As a leased

electronic data communication system linked to the

mainframe computer, the entire domestic and interna-

tional maritime transport community is aorded access

to an electronic data communication system that dra-

matically reduces the transaction costs of information

transfer. For example, the processing cost of a tradi-

tional single hard copy shipping note was S$12.00, but

was reduced to S$2.00 when processed through PORT-

NET (Tan et al., 1992, p. 1791). In 1995, PORTNET

possessed 1500 domestic and international subscribers

processing over 300,000 transactions per day. Since

PORTNET became an interactive web site in 1997,

Singapore touts itself as being a ``global maritime in-

formation hub''.

One last important ICT-based development associ-

ated with economic agglomeration connected to the

TNC command center function of Singapores new

space economy is linked to the city-states role as a

product logistics center in the regional production sys-

tem. Rather than relying upon the singular focus of

transshipment, the PSA has adopted and aggressively

marketed the concept of a ``distriport'' to add-value to

TNC products by operating over 500,000 m2 of multi-

storied warehouse space contained in four separate

``distriparks'' (Fig. 2). These facilities allow for the

consolidation and de-consolidation, surveying, quality

control, product testing, and repacking of cargo.

Opened in 1994, the space intensive Keppel Distripark is

located in a free trade zone and is the most IT auto-

mated. The KDNet computer application to which all

tenants are linked provides real-time information per-

taining to container storage and delivery and thus re-duces transaction costs through the promotion of

seamless movement between the distripark and con-

tainer terminals.

The value-adding activities such as packaging and

logistics associated with PSAs distriparks is just one

example of Singapores increased function as a value-

added maritime transport hub. Hong Kong's Orient

Overseas Container Line, for example, packages stereo

equipment sourced from both Malaysia and Indonesia

into boxes with the manufacturer's brand name before

shipping the nal product to the manufacturers ware-

house for eventual distribution to retail stores (WMAG,

1999). Sonys operations in Singapore comprises a crit-

ical link in the companys value chain; in Malaysia, CD

player parts are sourced from both Thailand and Ma-

laysia and are assembled into nal products which are

then shipped to Singapore for nal packaging before

Fig. 3. A BangkokSingapore feeder vessel from a mainline vessel vantage point. The terminals expert systems allow for the direct transfer of

containers between vessels, thus reducing port turnaround time. Source: author.

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being loaded into containers transported by a handful of

shipping TNCs.4

All of these integrated computer applications are

central to the inherent value-added activities of the

Singapore-centered transport chain. The application of

capital intensive IT to the spatially complex task of

coordinating the regional and global movement of

containers has substantially reduced labor requirements,

thus engendering greater productivity or value-added

activity (Fig. 5). During the 19901998 period when

container trac almost doubled, the number of PSAemployees remained stable at about 7000 persons.

Through much of this period, however, the value added

per employee increased approximately 72%, from

S$140,000 to a little over S$250,000. No longer collect-

ing value added per employee data since 1996, more

current surrogate data illustrate similar employee pro-

ductivity rates; between 1990 and 1998, TEU through-

put per employee increased from 721 TEU to 2330 TEU

(PSAAR, 1999). Although not restricted to maritime

transport, the cultivation of such value-added activity to

assist the spatial articulation of TNC distribution net-

works contributes to the governments desire to becomea ``global logistics hub''. Indeed, as TNCs focus more on

their core competencies, outsourcing of the distribution

function has engendered a clustering of some 600 lo-

gistics rms in Singapore. Recognizing that knowledge

structures and institutions must be provided to deepen

the institutional thickness necessary to localize global

processes (Amin and Thrift, 1995), the government es-

tablished the Logistics Enhancement and Applications

Programme in 1997 to institutionalize a solution-based

learning environment between government agencies and

the logistics industry.

4 While the author desired to provide a variety of examples of

Singapores value-added transport logistics function, these two are the

only examples uncovered. Perhaps because of low prot margins in a

highly competitive industry, shipping TNCs treat their contracts with

manufacturers as trade secrets. This environment of secrecy has no

doubt hardened since the United States government passed a law in

1999 no longer requiring shipping TNC to publicly disclose customer

service contracts.

Fig. 4. PORTNET, the PSA's electronic data communication system schema. Source: adapted from an unocial PSA document.

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6. Capturing trade ows

The adoption of advanced ICT systems by the PSA to

promote Singapores TNC logistical and distribution

command center function is an ideal example of the

power of technologies to engender the spatial concen-

tration of economic activity based upon capturing tradeows (Fig. 6). The city-states ability to capture trade

ows is contingent upon its ICT capabilities to exibly

coordinate a complex system of container ows at the

regional, and increasingly global scale based on the

economic logic of the container shipping industry de-

manding both simultaneous rigidity and exibility. The

regional network hierarchy includes Singapore as a re-

gional hub, Tanjung Priok as a national primate port,

Penang as a secondary port, and Kota Kinabalu as a

tertiary port. Singapore's hub status is unquestioned as

its TEU throughput is greater than seven times the

second busiest port within the city-port's Southeast

Asian hinterland/foreland region.

Having said this, however, it is important to identify

that the percentage of Singapores regional container

trac that is transshipped decreased from 70% to 60%

during the 19901997 period. Singapore is expected,

however, to maintain its regional hub status for theforeseeable future (Robinson, 1998) in part because to-

tal Southeast Asian container throughput during the

19962000 period was predicted to increase by 65%

(Hand, 1997a). The source of Singapores slight hub

function decline originates from the construction of ef-

cient greeneld container terminals in other national

primate city-ports, as well their hinterlands generating

sucient cargo to attract direct calls by medium-sized or

third-generation vessels (3000TEU) that ply the shorter

intra-Asian trades (Airriess, 1993). This process of

the deconcentration of the regional port system is

Fig. 5. TEU throughput 19851998, number of employees 19851998, and value added per employee 19901995, Port of Singapore Authority.

Sources: Port of Singapore Authority Annual Report, 1994, 1995 and 1999; PSA homepage, http://psa.com.sg/ (10 January 1998) and (November 3

1999).

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symptomatic of similar processes elsewhere in the world

(Hayuth, 1988; Kuby and Reid, 1992; Notteboom, 1997;

Wang, 1998).

As the PSA does not publish statistics on the origin/

destination of Singapore-based container trac, con-

struction of a detailed morphology of the regional hub

and spoke network is not possible. Some secondary or

``unocial'' data from trade journals, however, provides

an adequate picture of feeder-based regional container

ows. In 1997, for example, approximately 60% Indo-

nesias container trac was transshipped through the

city-state (Ion, 1998a). Despite the recognition that a

portion of Malaysias high-volume feeder trac with

Singapore includes the close-ended trade between the

two countries, it was estimated in 1995 that 80% of

Penangs container volume and 40% of the Port Klangs

were transshipped in Singapore. The regional hub status

of Singapore is heightened by the fact that the ve

feedership companies that possess approximately 95

vessels are Singapore-based and that one is the single

greatest contributor to PSAs container throughput (Ion,1998b).

Malaysia provides an instructive example of the dy-

namics of Singapore-based feeder operations and the

regional competition to bypass Singapore as a hub. The

Malaysian government has been aggressively promoting

Port Klang as a hub of its peninsular west coast, the east

coast of Sumatera, and more recently Bay of Bengal

ports (ST., 1995). While Port Klang has witnessed sub-

stantial annual growth in TEU throughput the 1990s, a

variety of linked institutional and structural barriers

have frustrated the governments goal as only a handful

of mainline carriers call at Port Klang, a port that uti-

lized only 60% of its container capacity in 1997.

First, the technological eciency of Port Klang

throughout much of the 1990s was not as competitive; the

port only adopted an EDI system in 1997, but was still

not connected to other world ports by 1998. In 1996, the

average turnaround time of container vessels at Port

Klang was 1617 h, when compared to 12 h in Singapore

(McDermott, 1996). Customs clearance of boxes in Ma-

laysia takes days while in Singapore only a matter of

hours was required in 1997 (SPT, 1997a). Second, the

institutional linkages between transport providers such

as freight forwarders in Malaysia and Singapore have

traditionally been strong, particularly in the economi-

cally booming southern state of Johor where trucking

containers to PSA berths is more cost ecient than

sending them north to Port Klang (Cunningham, 1997).

Aggravating this box leakage to Singapore is that Sin-

gapore-based assembly operations in Malaysia ship

much of their output to Singapore for further value

added before exporting the end-user product (SPT,1997b). An additional institutional barrier is that often

the manufacturer in Malaysia does not determine routing

logistics, but the buyer, which is often a Singapore-based

TNC (Hand, 1998b). The construction of two container

ports in the south has not contributed to any signicant

decline in the feedering of containers to Singapore which

in 1997, comprised some 1.5 million TEU (Durairaj,

1998). The Malaysian governments 1998 legislative

threat of forcing trac through Port Klang, in part

prompted by the economic recession, is evidence of the

feeder-induced loss of national pride and determinism.

Fig. 6. Regional container throughput, 1997/1998. Source: CIY (1999, 2000). Note: Only those Southeast Asian ports heavily dependent on Singapore

as a feeder hub are included.

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The economic logic of a transshipment hub such as

Singapore allows for the maximum connectivity of

transport routes serving the global production strategies

of TNCs. Serving both as a hub for regional trac and

increasingly for global trac, it is convenient to con-

ceptualize the Singapore-centered network matrix as

point to point movements with Singapore located at a

point functioning as the highest order platform con-

nected to other global platforms along high-volume

transport corridors (Rimmer and Comtois, 1997). In the

Pacic rim region, such operational and logistics plat-

forms also include Hong Kong, Tokyo Bay and Los

Angeles. It is at these platforms that the maximum

number of ``route strings'' converge to provide the

greatest exibility to both the transport of TNC prod-

ucts and shipping companies. Three very dierent ex-

amples are provided to elaborate the platform nature of

Singapore as a global maritime hub. In the case of Port

Klang which supports some 300 connections to foreign

ports via 66 mainline operators, feedering to Singaporewould substantially increase its connections to 600 ports

via 400 shipping lines (Hand, 1998b). Similarly, Singa-

pore serves as a critical platform for the EuropeAus-

tralia trades. In 1997, the port of Sydney possessed only

once a week connection to Rotterdam. Possessing sim-

ilar freight rates, transshipment in Singapore provides

greater regularity and exibility based upon six a week

sailings between Sydney and Singapore and 21 sailings a

week between Singapore and Rotterdam (Leong, 1997).

In Singapores aggressive expansion as a hub beyond its

traditional feeder hinterland of Southeast Asia, some

45% of Indias 1997 container trade of over 1 million

TEU is transshipped eastward through Singapore (Ion,

1998a, p. 17) despite much of that cargo s nal desti-

nation being to the west in Europe.

Applying these three examples to a simple model

describing how ports generate trac (Hayuth and

Fleming, 1994), Singapores transshipment-induced hub

status is based upon the concepts of centrality and in-

termediacy. Singapores centrality with reference to its

Southeast Asian hinterland, of which Malaysia is a part,

is based upon the shortest path movement between

various spokes and a hub. Both Australian and Indian

port examples are representative of spokes connected to

a hub possessing a location in long-distance transportspace with strong en route or intermediacy characteris-

tics. In the India example, however, Singapores e-

ciency based upon connectivity agglomeration provides

a situation of substantial spatial distortion of its inter-

mediacy location. While transport agglomeration based

upon centrality can certainly be contested by neighbors,

particularly on the shorter distance intra-Asian routes,

Singapore is able to remain competitive through terri-

torially embedding its long-distance route strings, and in

turn furthering its goal to globalize the national space

economy.

7. Shipping TNCs and global container hub status

Attention has already been given to the role of ship-

ping companies in meeting the production strategies of

TNCs. Only passing space, however, has been accorded

the critical role of the container shipping industry to

inuence Singapores container hub and spoke network

geometry, as well as the role of the developmental states

seaport policy to promote a global hub through taking

advantage of the economic logic of the container

transport industry to serve their globalized TNC clients.

While recognizing that TNC production strategies are

the primary catalyst for the restructuring of port sys-

tems, it is the container shipping industry that is the

direct motive force in transforming port industries at the

global scale (Slack et al., 1996). Without any consider-

ation of industry type, hub and spoke spatial geometries

are often constructed as delivery systems whereby the

location of the hub is determined by a single decision

maker. It is the shipping company or ``network planner''in delivery systems that determines the ows ``along

paths that are optimal for the system, with the lowest

cost for the entire network''. Because hubs are by de-

nition locations characterized by agglomerative econo-

mies, the shipping industry facilitates the creation hubs

to increase savings associated with lowering unit costs in

an environment of ``controlled congestion'' (OKelly,

1998, p. 172173). In part because xed costs have in-

creased substantially during the past two decades, the

shipping industry has engaged in a number of structural

and technological strategies to reduce operating costs

that have directly beneted emerging global container

hubs such as Singapore. Individual rms have merged to

increase their spatial reach, or what is more common is

that a handful of rms enter into alliances whereby a

carrier oers other carriers a number of container spaces

or slots over a xed period of time. In this fashion, in-

dividual rms retain their own corporate identity and

exibility, share costs, but secure revenues for slots that

may otherwise not be lled to nance the investment for

the vessel (Brooks et al., 1993). Such alliances are at-

tracted to hubs because of the diversity of alliance

member calls.

The PSA has exploited this place specic economies

of scale by oering cost reductions to alliance members.For example, in 1996, the PSA signed a 10 year contract

with the Global Alliance, a consortium of four shipping

TNCs, for their own ``virtual terminal'' guaranteeing

greater customization and certainty of costs (Fong,

1996). By virtue of these contracts, Singapore assumes

the function of an ``alliance hub''. For some shipping

rms that are not part of the alliance movement, the

PSA has signed Terminal Service Agreements (TSA)

guaranteeing the same customized services and rebates

on transshipped containers, which in the long term assist

shipping rms in facilitating the expansion of shipping

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services and transport-related industries in the region. In

turn, the PSA directly benets from maximizing berth

use, equipment, and labor (SPT, 1997c,e). While port

taris in Singapore are the highest among PacicAsia

ports after Taiwan and Hong Kong (Wang, 1998, p.

196), such long-term contracts with shipping rm con-

sortia make hubs such as Singapore more cost compet-

itive to cargo owners. The direct costs to shipping rms

in the form of port taris are less important than the

generalized transport costs associated with factors such

eciency, reliability and exibility (van Klink and van

den Berg, 1998).

Two observations concerning the globalization of

Singapores national space economy based on its con-

tainer hub status are important. Viewed as partnerships

between the PSA and the respective shipping rms, these

contractual and service agreements are simply expres-

sions of new forms of government intervention, or a

``new mercantilism'' (Dicken, 1997, p. 83) associated

with the process of globalization (Martin and Sunley,1997). Second, the various strategies adopted by the

PSA to globalize its operations through the creation of

an environment promoting institutional thickness is

being achieved by bringing together a number of actors

in the form of shipping TNCs in a central place that

serves as a node of transaction, cooperation, and in-

formation exchange (Di Maggio, 1993).

8. PSA corporatization and glocalization

During the latter half of the 1990s, PSAs fortunesmirrored the changing structure of the national space

economy that was increasingly becoming regionalized

and globalized as the government began promoting

overseas investment by a handful of selected domestic

industries to increase competition. In part, a response to

the recession of the mid-1980s, the government in 1987

embarked upon a systematic plan to privatize PEs for a

variety of reasons. These include their usefulness to

counterbalance the dominating presence of TNCs, the

perceived ``crowding out'' of the domestic private sector,

and the desire to deepen and broaden the Singapore

stock market so critical to the emergence of global city

status (Low, 1993). Equally as important, is that unlikethe other NIEs of South Korea and Taiwan, Singapore-

based companies had not been aggressively pursuing

substantial foreign investment activities (Kanai, 1993).

In response, the government engaged in a regionaliza-

tion of investment drive (Goh, 1993; Corey, 1995; Yeoh

and Willis, 1997; Yeung, 1998) allowing for the overseas

investment in infrastructure to provide a supportive base

for the spatial expansion of a wide variety of Singapore-

based companies (Perry et al., 1997).

Despite its high-prot level and nancial autonomy,

the government's suggestion that the PSA be partially

privatized through corporatization in 1987 only mate-

rialized in late 1997. To ensure the continued delivery of

maritime transport as a public good, the government

established the Maritime and Port Authority of Singa-

pore (MPA) in 1996 as a self-funded SB charged with

the promotion of its hub port status, as well as to con-

trol and regulate navigational infrastructure, and a host

of other services essential to port operations. Although

the privatization of PEs such as the PSA is a response to

the government belief to withdraw from companies that

no longer require its promotion (Low, 1991) a handful

of other factors warrant attention.

First, although its hub status will not be seriously

contested in the medium-term future, key regional

feeder ports have already engaged in more dramatic

privatization measures. Port Klang, for example, was

fully privatized in 1992 and Penang and Johor were

corporatized in 1993. In Indonesia, the three major

container ports of Tanjung Priok, Tanjung Perak and

Belawan were converted from state enterprises to cor-porations in the mid-1980s, and the rst two were

privatized with foreign investor equity in 1999 (Bousen,

1998). Second, with rates of feeder trac projected to

slow in the coming two decades, and regional market

share being more important than mere trac increase as

a measure of success (Gulick, 1998), the PSA is being

forced to look abroad as a source of income. Much like

a TNC then, expansion of business opportunities

abroad is a necessity under conditions of reduced capital

accumulation at home. Third, corporatization allows

the PSA to become more competitive at home and

abroad. In a highly competitive port environment,

where success is based upon exibility and customer

satisfaction, the loosening of government control is

perceived as necessary. With reference to ICT, there is

the concern that as these technologies become more

complex, government intervention might frustrate in-

novation and risk taking (Low, 1991). Indeed, the per-

centage of PSAs revenue dedicated to IT investments

will increase after corporatization because of the pres-

sure to become more protable (Chan, 1997). By the

year 2010 these joint venture projects are expected to

account for 30% of PSA's total revenues. The PSA had

already established its International Business Division

(IBD) in 1996, one year before corporatization. Withwholly owned subsidiaries specializing in port engi-

neering, planning, and IT applications, the PSA pos-

sessed an in-house platform to become a global owner

operator of port terminals and supporting logistics

businesses.

It is important, however, to perceive PSA's corpora-

tization and TNC status as simply part of the process of

globalizing the domestic economy. Essentially, global

TNC strategies have engendered revolutionary changes

in PSA operations at the local and regional scales, and

the successful synergies of this localglobal or glocal-

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ization process (Swyngedouw, 1992) are being forged to

promote new interactions in Singapores space economy

because the more domestic rms are internationally

oriented, the greater their territorial embeddedness,

which in turn promotes world city status (Shachar,

1997). The glocalization process has positioned the PSA

to become a global port operator because TNCs often

bear the imprint of their origin country (Dicken, 1997),

and just as cities and regions have successfully ``place

marketed'' themselves to derive competitive advantage

(Lash and Urry, 1993), so too can its corporations use

place specic attributes to market themselves overseas

(Ohmae, 1989). The marketing of its talents is certainly

aided by the well-earned reputation of the PSA as a

brand name for well-managed and ecient port opera-

tions based upon Singapores administrative culture

(Yeoh and Willis, 1997). This glocalization process

comprising the inter-dependent ows of the global and

local are expressed in the PSA's grand plan as stated in a

1996 IBD brochure: ``[o]ur vision is to create several huband spoke networks throughout the world. These net-

works will be tightly linked with the global logistics web,

providing superior levels of service''.

Both the type of investments and the geographic lo-

cation of PSA's overseas projects vary considerably

(Fig. 7). The least remunerative involves the provision of

ICT software services to ports already possessing the

hardware of container terminals, as well as consultancy

services with reference to sta training and equipment

maintenance. The nearby feeder ports of Belawan and

Tanjung Priok in Indonesia are examples of this type of

investment. These projects that enhance the operational

eciency of feeder ports begs the question of why the

PSA would sell transport technologies to regional ports

that are hypothetical competitors? While it is recognized

that selling its operational expertise to regional ports

only enhances the PSA's ability to direct container

trac to Singapore (McDermott, 1996), it is not a

question of regional competition, but regional compli-

mentarity because the increased eciency of PSA's ICT

infrastructure is only realized when other ports with

which it trades, support similar technologies. Much like

reaping the benets of ICT in other transnational eco-

nomic sectors (Jussawalla et al., 1992), without this

greater spatial articulation of ICT between ports, the

transaction costs of transport in the entire production

chain increases.

The foundation of the PSA's ability to develop a

sustained international focus is of course the procure-

ment of joint venture projects that involve the greeneld

development and management of container terminals.

In 1998, just two years after PSA's IBD commenced

operations, the container throughput of PSA's ve ma- jor joint venture terminals equaled 10% of the total

container throughput of its four Singapore terminals

(Chan, 1999). The PSA perceives the greatest investment

opportunities in the Peoples Republic of China and

India, two countries expected to experience dramatic

increases in foreign trade during the next quarter cen-

tury. Only those most important investments, or those

best illustrating the process of glocalization, are given

attention here.

The PSA's rst major port project in China was a

1996 joint venture with local port authorities to develop

the Dayaowan Container Terminal in the northeastern

city of Dalian. One of the equity shareholders is the

Fig. 7. PSAs joint ventures/projects, 2000. Sources: Information derived from various Shipping Times articles and PSAs homepage, http://psa.

com.sg/ (10 January 1998).

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shipping TNC Maersk, the PSA's most important non-

Asian customer in Singapore, and whose Asian manager

was a PSA board member throughout much of the

1990s. As Chinas fth busiest port, gateway to North-

east China, particularly with reference to the rapidly

growing Japan trade, and designated by the national

government as one of ve container hub ports serving

the country, the terminals throughput was 630,000 TEU

in 1999 and is capable of handling over 1 million TEUs

annually. Served by a dedicated container stack train as

well as eight feeder services, Dalian is envisioned to

become the busiest transshipment hub in Chinas

northeast. An interesting multiplier eect of the this port

project is another joint venture between the two parties

in 1998 to redevelop an area adjacent to the container

terminals into a center for tourism, waterfront and

commercial activities.

Other joint venture projects in China include con-

tainer terminals at the port of Fuzhou along the coun-

trys southeastern coast (Fong, 1997), and Taicang andChangshu, two of the 17 container ports that have been

established since 1981 to serve the booming export

economy of the lower Chang Jiang (Yangzi) River

(Hand, 1997b). The Fuzhou project is signicant be-

cause it is only one of two mainland ports designated by

the Beijing government to conduct trade with Taiwan.

The Taicang project is a joint venture with the state-

owned shipping rm COSCO, who is developing at the

same site, commercial, industrial and residential space as

part of a larger land development package called ``CO-

SCO International City''. 5 In an eort to attract port

business at Changshu based upon PSA's reputation,

advertising in trade journals often refers to Changshu

port as ``SingaporeChangshu'' port.

The PSA truly entered the ranks of a global port

corporation through its recent addition of joint venture

projects on the Arabian Peninsula and Europe. In Aden,

Yemen, the PSA signed a 20 year terminal contract to

manage and operate a greeneld project that com-

menced operations in 1999. Anchored by free trade

zones, the PSA and Yemeni government hope that the

container port will become one of the major regional

transshipment hubs for East Africa and the Persian Gulf

(SPT, 1997d). Aside from the Dalian and Aden projects,

the PSA's crowning joint venture is Voltri TerminalEurope in Genoa, Italy, the single largest dedicated

container terminal in the country (Hand, 1998a;

Hughes, 1998). Two PSA consultancy subsidiaries were

involved in the planning of Voltri in 1991, and by 1998,

the PSA purchased a 60% stake in a holding company

which possesses a majority stake in the port. From a

meager 60,000 TEUs in 1994, the terminal experienced a

throughput of over 700,000 TEUs in 1998. It is hoped

that Voltri is positioned to become a primary Mediter-

ranean hub and major container gateway port for Eu-

rope. PSA's joint venture interest was no doubt

contingent upon the Italian governments earlier 1992

rationalization of port operations that included the de-

monopolizing of port labor by creating private steve-

doring companies, classifying the port of Genoa as an

international port, and the establishment of a port au-

thority possessing autonomous nancial management

(Ridol, 1996). In an attempt to replicate the eciency

of Singapore, the PSA in 1999 has embarked on the rst

phase of a distripark development project.

The spatial expansion of PSA operations at both the

regional and global scales is a part of the larger process

of the restructuring of port industry around the world.The provisioning of ecient and ``smart'' ports by the

PSA could only materialize under a more liberalized

mode of transport regulation (Bell and Cloke, 1990)

linked to export-led growth policies (Hooper, 1996), and

to forces of TNC production and accumulation at the

global scale. Indeed, the PSA is only one of a handful of

port corporations that have recently transformed

themselves into TNCs. The most aggressive and largest

has been Hong Kong-based Hutchison Port Holdings

(HPH), which itself is part of the larger conglomerate of

Hutchison Whampoa. In 1998, HPH operated 18 con-

tainer terminals worldwide, which collectively accounted

for 10% of global container throughput. When the in-

ternational port operations of the PSA and HIT are

combined with the terminal operations of major ship-

ping rms, the post-Fordist global economy has en-

gendered the process of consolidation of command ports

servicing long-distance maritime trade (Hughes, 1997).

9. Conclusions

Although often comprising hidden dimensions of the

economic globalization process, the synergies of ICTs

and container transport associated with the manage-ment of trade are critical to understanding the sinews of

the post-Fordist world. Viewed not as a service, but an

integral slice of the production process, ICTs and con-

tainer transport increases the spatial synchronization of

tradable goods between producing and consuming re-

gions through more ecient distribution networks based

upon JIT logistics. In turn, reduced transaction costs

yield greater prots to TNCs because of the increased

velocity of capital turnover. Much like their TNC cli-

ents, shipping rms and ports have experienced a post-

Fordist structural transformation. Driven by the high

5 It is worthy to mention that some of Singapores overseas

investments, particularly those of the commercial and residential land

development variety such as in Suzhou, have not been nancially

successful. Port development, however, particularly in the medium

term future is a reasonably safe investment considering the present

trajectory of Chinas export driven economy.

250 C.A. Airriess / Geoforum 32 (2001) 235254

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xed cost of ICT and the increasing size of vessels,

shipping TNC have entered into alliances or mergers to

achieve greater economies of scale and operational

exibility. The increased concentration of container ca-

pacity among fewer shipping TNCs has resulted in a

similar concentration of container ows at transport

logistics platforms serving long-distance or oceanic

trade. These transportlogistics platforms provide spa-

tial exibility of transport within an environment of

agglomeration.

Singapores meteoric rise as a transport logistics

platform is directly tied to the policies of the develop-

mental state, one that very early on engaged the global

economy to remain regionally competitive. Territorially

embedding the global economy has been achieved by

nuturing the institutional thickness of the national ICT

network so that the city-state would perform a TNC

management function within a larger Southeast Asian

production complex. Specically charged with the re-

sponsibility of managing the transport needs of TNCs,the PSA was one of the public institutions at the fore-

front of creating an environment of institutional thick-

ness by facilitating interaction among actors in the

transport sector. The PSAs innovative software appli-

cations to control the congestion associated with a hub

and spoke transport network promotes the embedded-

ness of Singapores national space economy into the

global economy by attracting mainline shipping TNCs

determined to reduce transaction costs. No longer re-

lying on technological hardware to remain competitive,

the PSA further embeds shipping TNCs and other

transportlogistics providers with the opportunity for

value-added activities through the customer service-

oriented distriparks. The same global forces that pro-

pelled Singapore to become the busiest global container

port also explains PSA's transformation into a TNC.

This interactive process of glocalization positioned the

corporatized PSA to harness its reputation in order to

capitalize on the worldwide deregulation of transport

and export-led development philosophies. In turn, the

process of glocalization increases the territorial em-

beddedness of the PSA and thus assists in bolstering the

city-states global city status.

It is the institutional thickness of ICT in Singapore s

space economy that will allow the PSA to remain ter-ritorially embedded in the global through the regional

TNC production complex. The PSA's high-productivity

rates and customer-oriented services assume important

embedding forces. Agglomerative economies that in-

clude maritime nance, insurance, and ship repair and

registry favors Singapores persistence as a global mar-

itime hub. While Singapores market share of regional

container movements have declined during the 1990s,

such losses might be oset by globalizing its intermedi-

acy location via India, Australia and the Persian Gulf.

Decreasing market share within the larger territorial

production complex could be met by further special-

ization in information handling to strengthening its

maritime information hub status. To manage the logis-

tics-supply chain, containers do not necessarily have to

physically cross the terminals at the same point in space

where trade is being managed. This opportunity to

capture the global is heightened as electronic commerce

is now spatially penetrating beyond national boundaries

to become global in scale.

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