Chemical Cluster Performance in Shanghai-Ningbo Port Delta

Seaport is a cluster of port-related economic activities. This paper focuses on the production activity of the chemical industry in a port cluster. SCIP and NPETD are two chemical clusters located in Shanghai and Ningbo port delta. The results suggest that SCIP and NPETD perform differently on cluster structure and cluster governance. SCIP performs greater than NPETD on the quality of labor pool, on the diversity of the cluster population, and on the quality of internationalization regime. On the other hand, NPETD only performs greater than SCIP on the diversity of patents. SCIP and NPETD both perform poorly on the presence of trust in the clusters. The performance on quality of innovation regime cannot be ranked. They both perform well on innovation regime. Cooperation between SCIP and NPETD is a good strategy to improve the performance of the cluster. The cooperation could create some synergies, such as a high-quality shared labor pool, higher diversity of cluster population, and information and knowledge resource, complemented innovation regimes, and greater international cluster environment. Nevertheless, it is essential for SCIP and NPETD to increase the level of trust in the deltar. Otherwise, it would be difficult to achieve such synergies.