Benchmarking the efficiency of Asian container ports

In the last decade, the shipping industry and the global seaborne trade has witnessed a rapid growth due to globalization of the world economy, boom in international trade and borderless investments. As competition among international ports has intensified, the evaluation of port operational efficiency has become increasingly important to enable individual ports to reflect on its current status quo and understand their strengths and weaknesses in the competitive environment. This study aims to investigate the technical and scale efficiency of major container ports in the Asian region. The study employs the non-parametric Data Envelopment Analysis technique to benchmark and evaluate the operating performance of 69 major Asian container ports and generate efficiency ranking. The results indicate that the average technical efficiency of the Asian container ports is 48.4%. The overall technical inefficiency in Asian container ports is due to pure technical inefficiency rather than scale inefficiency. The results of this study can indicate possible improvement(s) in port management and operational planning at local and national levels.