THE INFLUENCE OF CHINA TO THE CONTAINER MARKET IN EUROPE

European economy, which has globally been one of the most important for centuries, greatly depends on maritime transshipment. According to the European Commission’s data, 74% of cargo, which comes to or leaves Europe, uses maritime transport. Therefore, we can clearly see the importance of ports for economic growth. Over the past decades, containerized transport has become one of the most important ways for transporting cargo, so ports needed to adapt with the new equipment and better capacities. In 2000, the container traffic in EU ports represented as much as 21% of all transshipped containers in the world, while, this percentage was only 18% in Chinese ports. Today, China has become a leading country in the container throughput, with a share of 28%, while the EU’s share has fallen to 15%.