Abstract
This book is an excellent reference on the state of port reform throughout the Asia-Pacific region. While there have been a number of articles in recent years on port reform in Australia, China, Hong Kong, Korea and Singapore, much of the Asia-Pacific region has been overlooked. This book not only rectifies this gap by providing much needed insight into the situation in India, Japan, Malaysia, and New Zealand, while also consolidating the work already completed elsewhere. With the rise of Asia as the world s most important shipping and port market, the editors are to be commended for bringing new voices to the discussion and developing a strong contribution to the port reform and port governance literature. Mary R. Brooks, Dalhousie University, Canada The transformation of public ports into commercially orientated and profitable entities is occurring apace in the Asia-Pacific region. This timely book is the first to take a regional perspective on port reform and port privatisation. A range of countries is examined, including China, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, Australia and New Zealand. The book s contributors are academic specialists in the fields of port economics and management, whose country studies illustrate a variety of port privatisation methods and outcomes in an economically, politically and culturally diverse region connected by extensive maritime trade networks. Significantly, the book concludes that privatisation of ports is an important but far from universal approach to reforming the region s ports. Focusing exclusively on port privatisation in the Asia-Pacific region, this book will be of great interest to academics and policymakers who are interested in port reform, together with those interested in privatisation more generally in the Asia-Pacific region.