Seaport gateways and the corridors which connect them to widely dispersed hinterlands are of vital and essential importance to international trade and the world economy. Distributing goods to ultimate land destinations or bringing the goods to seaports from inland origins is organizationally complex involving multiple actors. This book furthers understanding about how this movement is organized, the role of ports acting as gateways and the actions of corridor players. A key question that confronts the shipping and port industries, as well as public authorities, is how to increase the benefits of maritime trade to the companies and institutions directly involved as well as the port city-regions where the transfers take place? This question is being posed in the midst of a global economic recession and trade downturn, and in the context of contemporary policy frameworks whose goals are to generate economic benefits and efficiencies rather than to maximize traffic volumes. This book puts into perspective the reality, opportunities and challenges facing seaport gateways and corridors now and in the future.

1: Introduction; I: Global Economic Change: Implications for Ports, Corridors and Value Chains; 2: Economic Cycles in Maritime Shipping and Ports: The Path to the Crisis of 2008; 3: Organizational and Geographical Ramifications of the 2008-2009 Financial Crisis on the Maritime Shipping and Port Industries; 4: Carriers' Role in Opening Gateways: Experiences from Major Port Regions; 5: Transport and Logistics Hubs: Separating Fact from Fiction; 6: Port, Corridor, Gateway and Chain: Exploring the Geography of Advanced Maritime Producer Services; II: Measuring and Improving Gateway and Corridor Performance; 7: Measuring Port Performance: Lessons from the Waterfront; 8: Key Interactions and Value Drivers towards Port Users' Satisfaction; 9: Improving Port Performance: From Serving Ships to Adding Value in Supply Chains; 10: Coordination in Multi-Actor Logistics Operations: Challenges at the Port Interface; III: International Case Studies; 11: Benchmarking the Integration of Corridors in International Value Networks: The Study of African Cases; 12: Building Value into Transport Chains: The Challenges of Multi-Goal Policies; 13: Perspectives on Integrated Container Transport: The Canadian Example; 14: Trade Corridors and Gateways: An Evolving National Transportation Plan; 15: Hinterlands, Port Regionalisation and Extended Gateways: The Case of Belgium and Northern France; 16: Entrepreneurial Region and Gateway-Making in China: A Case Study of Guangxi