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The Entry of Developing Countries into World Shipping: A Case Study of Sri Lanka

The post-World War II era has witnessed efforts by most of the newlyindependent countries of Asia to develop national merchant marines. While in some countries this required fresh initiatives, in others it was more a re-emergence of an industry that had suffered serious setbacks under colonial rule. But whatever the case for a particular nation, a feature common to all has been a great determination to establish national merchant marines as a means of achieving economic independence. To begin it is therefore appropriate to analyze the rationales that underlay this behaviour. At independence the staple exports of almost all these countries were subject to the vagaries of world markets. Some of these commodities were also non-essentials and hence easily substituted, which made demand highly elastic. Further, because some of the substitutes were available in the importing nations (and did not require long and costly sea passages), any increase in freight charges invariably fell on the seller rather than the buyer. As well, man-made substitutes established price ceilings on many raw material exports from the developing countries, which also forced the sellers to bear any increases in freight rates. The importers in the developed countries were thus for the most part unconcerned about rising transport costs for raw materials. In many instances commodities from developing countries were therefore purchased f.o.b.; with the buyer paying the market price prevailing in the industrial country less the freight rates (or some proportion thereof). What was worse from the perspective of the exporting countries was that f.o.b. purchasers generally enjoyed the right to