United Nation Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific Transport and Tourism Division

Maritime Policy Planning Model (MPPM)

Containerization is now the preferred form of transport for nearly all imports and exports of manufactures and processed agricultural products throughout the region. Its development and massive growth have had a marked impact on the shipping and port sector of the region changing it from labour to capital intensive.

Today, investment in a large mainline container ship is in the region of US$ 60 million and the cost of developing an individual container terminal can easily exceed US$ 70 million. To be successful in making decisions on such important long-term investments within a highly competitive and rapidly changing environment, governments and private sector investors need a comprehensive view of competing and complimentary regional developments.

In order to assist countries in the region address these issues, the ESCAP secretariat has developed the computer-based Maritime Policy Planning Model (MPPM) to provide a planning context for the development of shipping and port investment strategies. MPPM can be directly applied to the evaluation of future shipping requirements, national port plans and the investigation of the potential benefits of alternate maritime policy investment decisions.

The MPPM has been validated in a series of studies on “Prospects for container shipping and port development” for three sub-regions (ASEAN, South Asian and East Asia, respectively) and one intra-regional study, and a recent study on “Regional shipping and port development strategies under a changing maritime environment”.

A new study on “Container throughput forecasting for shipping and port development strategies in the APEC region” is planned to commence soon in collaboration with the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) and the Korea Maritime Institute (KMI).