Abstract

The shipping trade has also got caught up in the worldwideglobalization trend. Today there are some ten strong ship operatorsin the world (so called mega shipowners) who are workingeither on their own or are mutually connected to cover aspecific market. In an effort to meet the requirements of the endusers, the shipping companies tend to organize strong feederservices. Feeder services can also be initiated by terminal operatoror port authority which is most often reflected in the subventionof empty feeder ship cargo space (formerly 100 to 300TEU, now 500 to 1000 even 1500 TEU).Thus, the Feeder Service Rijeka/Ploce- Gioa Tauro/Maltastarted up at some time past by Losinjska p/ovidba, organizedby Rijeka Port Authority and subsidized by the Ministry of MaritimeAffairs, Transport and Communications of the Republicof Croatia 1999, is the beginning of the container transport revitalizationprocess in the Republic of Croatia. The service turnedout to have been reliable and accurate and attracted many users.Having logistic support of 22 Croatian companies throughcompetetive prices and high-quality service on the one handand three time bigger shore capacity on the other hand, containerterminal in the port of Rijeka has attracted two commercialweekly feeder services ( CMA-CGM and UFS), even thespectacular callings (twice a week) of so called Mother ships (ZIM and Lloyd Triestino). As their logistics support, the Croatianrailways have started off a direct container block-trainRijeka - Budapest. The annual growth achieved in the containerfeeder transport stands at about 60% and with the comingof other shipowners Rijeka container terminal has increasedits turnover from 6.000 TEU in 1999 to 30.000 TEU in2003

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