Speaking at MEED’s Middle East Ports Development Conference in Dubai in late January, a senior official from Dubai’s DP World urged the global port industry to ramp up capacity. But the question remains as to whether the Gulf can continue to sustain its growth at current levels, even in a wider shipping market that is riding high on booming levels of trade.

Shipping companies have become disenchanted with the manner in which ports continue to focus on expansion when, as they see it, existing capacity in the system is underused. Some argue that the cost of falling productivity for shipping lines each year is enough to build a substantial port.

Small wonder then that some customers mutter that the largest ports no longer offer value for money. Smaller, more focused and tightly-run operations will become more attractive to firms if productivity continues to slide and costs keep rising at the largest ports.

Larger operators argue, with some justification, that the scale of new business arriving in Dubai and other such cities means that they have no option but to expand. However, capacity is running far ahead of demand, and that gap will widen dramatically if all the expansion plans announced are carried out in full.

Despite global growth in the shipping industry, the ports of the Middle East cannot assume that if they build facilities the ships will come.

Rather than expansion for expansion’s sake, the smartest firms will pay just as much attention to customer service and providing value for money. Those that do not will miss out.