US ports put rivalry on ice and tour Asia

US ports know where their main customers are and are wasting no time in reaching out to Asia, with Gulf of Mexico ports leading the way.

Executives from Houston (Texas), Mobile (Alabama) and Tampa (Florida) have returned from an unprecedented "Gulf Coast Advantage" promotion to China, Hong Kong, Korea, Singapore and Taiwan.

Until now they have treated each other as rivals and competed vigorously. But they now realise the Panama Canal expansion is changing the business landscape.

Ricky Kunz, Port of Houston vice-president, says the volume of business is such that shipping lines should have enough business to fill outbound and inbound services.

Wade Elliott, senior director of marketing for the Port of Tampa, says that Asian customers were definitely impressed by the joint marketing effort and have become more interested.

Houston is noted mainly for oil and related services, but has ramped up its Asia connections. A US$350,000, two-year agreement has been signed with logistics and support service agency Ben Line Agencies, which has 90 offices in 15 countries in Asia.

On the West Coast, Los Angeles and Long Beach handled 20 percent more containers than in 2009, an increase of 2.5 million TEU, which brought the total to just over 14 million TEU.

The National Retail Federation predicts that overall, volumes through the two ports this year will be slightly lower than in 2010. Numbers were down in the three months to the end of November, an indication of what might be in store. The Federation says that Long Beach/LA handled 65 percent of the total of 16 million inward bound containers to the US.

Long Beach is touting the big difference in the number of weekly vessel calls compared with the rest of the Western Seaboard - two to Prince Rupert, Canada; 16 to Vancouver, Canada; eight each to Seattle and Tacoma and 40 to LA/Long Beach. Observers have noted that the East Coast is a bigger danger.

At the port of Baltimore, breakbulk and general cargo was up almost 15 percent over 2009.Nonetheless, the West Coast is expecting the recent trade agreement with South Korea - which still has to go through a number of political hoops - to be a fillip to business. Federal officials reckon that exports to South Korea could increase by up to $11 billion and the country is now the seventh biggest trade partner for the US.

John Engler, president of the National Association of Manufacturers, says the agreement will eliminate tariffs on 95 percent of consumer and industrial products in three years. He says that exports of $250 billion are up for grabs and until now the US had only 11 percent of the market.

Beef has been left out of the agreement and new members of congress say they will pressure the White House on this.

A big dampener on non-container trade could come from China's investigation into US livestock grain imports, known in the trade as dried distillers grains. China says the action has been taken after complaints of dumping by four domestic producers. The US produced 44 million tonnes last year, compared with China's average annual production of less than 4 million tonnes.

US sources say the move is in retaliation for a complaint to the World Trade Organisation that China is susidising wind turbine manufacturers.
(Source:www.cargonewsasia.com)