As well being as subject to the growing competitive pressures from a globalized maritime trade, port restructuring is also part of broader internal changes taking place within countries towards deregulation of the economy and change in the responsibility of the state. Ports have tended to be state-owned in both developed and developing economies. In the developed world the most common form of port ownership structure until recently has been the landlord port model, wherein ‘the port maintain ownership while the infrastructure is leased to private operating companies’ (Brook, 2004, p.170.). With the shift to port privatization, along the lines of the UK model, this situation has changed. In the developing world, however, the shift from nationalized ports to a management structure that incorporate private sector interests in the running of day-to-day operations has been slower than in the developed world. The normative assumption underlying most discussion of port reform in the developing world is that some form of privatization is necessary, although there is not always a clear definition of what this process might en tail (Cullinane and song, 2002).