Ports have also enjoyed strong reforms. Since the early 1990s, port deregulation has been widespread and the private sector is now one, if not the, key actor in most large countries of America, Africa, Oceania and even in the largest countries of Asian such as China and India. As in the case of railways, Europe lags the other regions in terms of deregulation and continues to have hybrid organizational structure in which the public sector continues to play a key role as provider, financier and regulator simultaneously. The overall picture of the sector can be summarized with some estimates made by Drewry (2002). In 1991, the public sector handled about 42% of container port throughput but by 2001 its share had dropped to about 27% with a strong concentration in South East Asia and Western & Eastern Europe<sup>4</sup> .

One indicator that gives a sense of the outcome of these restructuring and deregulation efforts over the last eighteen years is the number of new transport infrastructure projects considered by the private sector as countries were liberalizing the sector. Public Works Financing roughly compiles this information. According to this source, between 1985 and 2003, 1137 new transport projects worth US$ 684 billion were _planned_ around the world. This implies an average project size of US$600 million. The distribution of these projects by transport sub-sector shows that toll roads accounts for 50 percent while rail, airports and ports account for 22%, 16% and 12% of the total commitments respectively. Their distribution across regions shows that about 60% of these projects are committed to developing countries but 55% of the amounts committed are for developed countries. Table 1 also shows that the average project size varies significantly across regions with the largest average projects in Europe and Asia. The average project size in developing countries is about half the size in developed countries.

While these commitments numbers give a useful sense of the upper limit of the private sector flows in the sector, they may somewhat be misleading. Indeed, only half of the new projects reported up to end of 2003 had effective financing –i.e. were under construction or operation.<sup>5</sup> The evolution of these commitments is however interesting. It shows that since the 1997 Asia crisis, the number of commitments has dropped significantly but much more importantly in developing than in developed countries.

Overall, this implies that even though the deregulation of transport did generate enthusiasm during the early part of the 1990s, the Asia crisis and the overall instability of financial markets were enough to slow down and even overturn these commitments by the private sector. Many more reasons contribute to explain why effective disbursement lags behind. Some of them are country specific – pace of privatization/liberalization process, institutional organization, rule of law- while others are influenced by global conditions – mainly crisis in financial markets. A more detailed look at the differences between developed and developing economies can provide useful insights.

> 4 Certainly, the private sector dominates stevedoring (particularly container handling) activities, but when ownership of quays, shipping channels, breakwaters and navigation aids are considered, the public sector remains the key player almost everywhere.

> 5. 47% of projects and 51% of total funds.

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