The paper presents an analysis of the costs of shipping containers from four Chinese ports to
representative central European destinations. It is demonstrated that the sum of costs by sea and costs
over land, using both truck and rail transport, clearly favours the Italian ports, above all those of Genoa
and Trieste for a geographic range that does not include all the Northern countries of the European Union
and Russia but does cover a considerable portion of the southernmost cities of these countries such as
Milan, Munich, Vienna, Budapest, Bern, Lyon, and Kiev.
Other Italian ports can compensate for the handicap of the greater distance from this range of
production and consumption zones, if they are appropriately reorganized with lower costs in direct
competition with the Northern European ports, particularly the port of Naples, where COSCO has set up
operation. However, despite the evident advantages in terms of distance and costs, Italian ports are unable
to compete with those of Northern Europe on account of inefficiency affecting both their internal
structure and inland transport. The purpose of the paper is to define costs in each sector (shipping costs,
port costs and inland distribution costs) and to compare the relative port positions.
