Stakeholder management for establishing sustainable regional port governance

In the era of intense competition and integration of multimodal supply chains, it is increasingly important to implement port governance and planning at port cluster levels. Due to its larger scope than the case of an individual port, regional port governance involves a higher number of stakeholders including policymakers at various levels, market players and community groups. Accordingly, stakeholder management becomes more complicated. The Pearl River Delta (PRD) in South China is a major port region with Hong Kong and Shenzhen being its largest ports. In view of Hong Kong's gradual integration within China's national and regional planning, there is an increasing need for cooperation among the ports in the PRD region, in order to achieve mutually beneficial outcomes. This study aims to analyze the major conflicts and mutual benefits encountered by Hong Kong and Shenzhen ports and thereby formulate strategies for stakeholder management from the governmental perspective in establishing sustainable regional port governance. To establish a mega maritime and port cluster, we recommend forming an official inter-city governmental office to be in charge of port cooperation at the regional level so as to provide soft leadership for this purpose.