In recent years, the centre of world port has moved from Europe to Asia

The report explains that in the second quarter of this year 939 ports worldwide have been scaled by services regular shipping and states that if all ports had direct connections between them, there would be 440,391 services direct seafarers from port to port, whereas in reality only 12,748 port pairs have direct connections, i.e. the 2.9% of the theoretical total. For the remaining 97.1% of port pairs Connections are made indirectly through the transfer of containers at other ports. The report notes that port pairs that are less connected are only connected with services that require up to six transfers to other ports, i.e. through seven direct services and 14 cargo handling at ports necessary to carry out the entire transport.

In this regard, the report refers to "betweenness", that is, compared to how many port-to-port connections a specific port port is among the best options in terms of minimizing the number of transfers required to perform the entire transport. The document explains that in the case of Rotterdam, which in 2020 was the port with the highest betweenness, 42,656 connections were found port-to-port that include the Dutch port port between the routes optimal for transport. In the ranking for the Rotterdam is followed by the ports of Antwerp and Hamburg.

The report also specifies that in relation to betweennes Europe's major ports are better connected than major Asian ports, while relative to the "degree", that is, the number of other ports with which a single port has Asian ports are better connected than European ports.

The report also looks at the options available shippers and shippers explaining that among the 12,748 direct connections from port to port that do not require transfer, 6,017 connections (47.2% of the total) are made by a single 2,751 routes (21.6%) Operate two competing and 3,980 routes (31.2%) operate three or multiple containerized shipping carriers.

The document states that the pair of ports better connected via direct services is Ningbo-Shanghai, route on which 52 airline companies operate direct services between the two ports. Next are the Port couples Klang-Singapore (41 companies), Busan-Shanghai (38 companies) and Shanghai-Qingdao (37). In addition, all the top 50 pairs of ports have the best connections are on routes and almost all of them on routes Asian-Asian countries. The exceptions are two intra-European connections: Antwerp-Rotterdam (with 24 companies on the route) and Hamburg-Rotterdam (23 companies).

The report also looks at what has changed in recent years 14 years on port connectivity pointing out that between the second quarter of 2006 and the second quarter of 2006 2020, the number of container ports included in the network increased by 13% from 834 to 939 and that, over the period, the average "betweenness" rose by 27% reflecting the growth of the containerized shipping network and the reduction of direct port-to-port services. In addition, the centre of the network in terms of major port nodes and their location within the network has moved from Europe to Asia. The ports that have improved their "degree" the most China (Nansha, Ningbo and Shekou), while the three ports that have recorded the largest decline in direct connections United Kingdom (Tilbury and Felixstowe) and Venezuela (Puerto Cabello).

In addition, over the past 14 years, the share of port pairs direct services decreased from 3.7% in the year to 10 per cent 2.9% in 2020 reflecting the tendency to make a more connections that are made through (the average "degree" in the period is decreased by -10%).

Finally, in the last 14 years, the number of navigation that provide services for pairs of ports is remained constant at 2.7.