Containership Flag Selection: The Opening of Direct Shipping between Taiwan and China

Table 7

Relative closeness and the ranking of alternatives.

Criteria	Local weights	Global weights	Performance of alternatives
			Taiwan	Hong Kong	China
C1 government policies	0.441
C11 efficiency of authority	0.141	0.062 (8)	0.209 (2)	0.633 (1)	0.158 (3)
C12 vessels recruited in war	0.083	0.037 (12)	0.293 (2)	0.431 (1)	0.276 (3)
C13 registry qualifications acquired	0.358	0.158 (2)	0.560 (1)	0.180 (3)	0.260 (2)
C14 direct shipping licenses	0.418	0.184 (1)	0.319 (2)	0.268 (3)	0.413 (1)
C2 economic factors	0.317
C21 crew costs	0.220	0.070 (6)	0.222 (3)	0.486 (1)	0.292 (2)
C22 dual class expenses	0.160	0.051 (9)	0.221 (3)	0.330 (2)	0.449 (1)
C23 financing costs	0.338	0.107 (3)	0.337 (2)	0.416 (1)	0.247 (3)
C24 tax-related expenses	0.282	0.089 (4)	0.162 (3)	0.520 (1)	0.318 (2)
C3 operational flexibility	0.242
C31 employment requirement for Taiwanese seafarers	0.286	0.069 (7)	0.169 (3)	0.562 (1)	0.269 (2)
C32 complying with PSC requirements	0.189	0.046 (11)	0.359 (1)	0.308 (3)	0.333 (2)
C33 cargo considerations	0.329	0.080 (5)	0.116 (3)	0.284 (2)	0.600 (1)
C34 prohibition of the employment of Chinese seafarers	0.196	0.047 (10)	0.080 (3)	0.460 (1)	0.460 (1)
Relative closeness			0.566 (3)	0.475 (1)	0.504 (2)