The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger - Second Edition with a new chapter by the author

by Marc Levinson

That disadvantage goes far beyond the occasional lost export sale. A country cursed with outmoded or badly run ports is a country that faces great obstacles to finding a larger role in the world economy. In 2004, the World Bank estimated that if Peru were as effective at port management as Australia, that alone would increase its foreign trade by one-quarter. The Peruvian government took that warning seriously, arranging $2 billion in port investments over the ensuing decade, which made possible a very large increase in foreign trade. Tanzania, on the other hand, staunchly resisted modernization. If only the port at Dar es Salaam had been as efficient as the nearby port at Mombasa, in Kenya, the average Tanzanian family in 2012 would have saved a stunning 8.5 percent of its annual expenses. Countries that fail to modernize their ports will receive the maritime equivalent of branchline service on a single-track railway. The big containerships that link national economies in the global supply chain, carrying nothing but stacks of metal boxes, will pass them by.