Black Seas Regional focus

This Master Thesis has been written as a partial fulfillment of the requirements of the MSc Regional, Port and Transport Economics at the Department of Applied Economics - Erasmus University Rotterdam. The work has been carried out in the cities of Rotterdam, Varna and Constantza. First and foremost, I would like to thank my supervisor in Rotterdam, Dr. W. Jacobs for his excellent support and advice. I am also especially grateful to the General Manager of CSCT terminal in Constantza Mr. Rowan Bullock and the Exploitation Director of the Port of Varna eng. Alexander Stankov for making my research possible and giving me the opportunity to gain insights of the maritime sector. Finally, I would like to acknowledge the help of capt. Nikola Hristov (Bulgarian Association of Ship Brokers and Agents), eng. Serguey Vassilev (SENY Ltd.), the Marketing Department at the Port of Varna, and the whole management team of DPW in Constantza. Without them, the scope of my work and the insightful comments wouldn’t have been the same.