International Trade from the Eyes of Dixie Cullen

Cargo Crime Increases Over Holiday Periods

2011-11-23T06:53:00.000-06:00

From our Friends at Roanoke Trade: info@roanoketrade.com Theresa Garcia tgarcia@roanoketrade.com

Last year, FreightWatch reported that cargo crime increases by 28% over holiday periods and that Thanksgiving weekend recorded the most cargo theft activity of all holiday periods in the United States (click here to register to view the report).

Shippers, manufacturers and transportation companies must remain aware of the increased security risks during the upcoming Thanksgiving weekend. Long holidays provide provide criminals with excellent opportunities to target, steal and transport goods to their storage locations before the product is even discovered missing.

Additionally, holidays can cause long delays for drivers attempting to deliver loads. These delays will increase the risk to drivers and loads in-transit by leaving them vulnerable for longer periods of time.

Holiday weekends are notorious for high volumes of cargo theft activity, especially at terminals and drop yards where loaded trailers are parked for long periods of time. This amplifies the need for logistics professionals to ensure their security protocols are up to date and in line with industry best practices.

For warehousing operations, ensure your security alarm systems are functioning properly. FreightWatch also recommends the following:

Treat all alarm trouble signals as an intrusion alarm
Do not rely on a backup (cellular/radio) system
If primary alarm fails assign security officer to patrol facility exterior or have a member of management remain at the facility

For in-transit operations, FreightWatch recommends drivers remain vigilant and maintain communication with their dispatch when stopped at high risk areas such as truck stops and rest areas. Loads should not be dropped or left unattended for any reason.

For More Information About This Topic Contact FreightWatch.

~~~~~~~~~~~

As a side note to this posting Dixie Cullen has always taken the extra steps during the Holiday's to ensure that your material and equipment, that is in storage at our facility, is not an easy target. Monitored Security by off site firm, people maintained on site and dogs.

U. S. Trade Deficit Narrows; Exports Hit Record

2011-11-17T12:02:00.000-06:00

From Transport Topics 11/10/11

The U.S. trade narrowed by 4% in September as exports climbed to a record high, the Commerce Department said Thursday.

The gap between imports and exports declined to $43.1 billion, the lowest level this year, from a revised $44.9 billion in August that was smaller than originally estimated, Commerce figures showed.

Economists had forecast the deficit to widen to $46 billion, Bloomberg reported.

Exports increased 1.4% to a record $180.4 billion, boosted by sales of industrial supplies, capital equipment, automobiles and consumer goods, Bloomberg said.

Imports rose 0.3% to $223.5 billion. Demand rose for automobiles, food and industrial supplies, but crude oil imports declined, Bloomberg said.

Do you know about the Houston Ship Channel Security District?

2011-11-11T05:03:00.006-06:00

Being involved with International Business and handling material that comes in and out of the port at our warehouse facility, we are familiar with the Houston Ship Channel Security District.

However I've not had any direct dealings with them, but earlier this week I had the opportunity to attend the Houston Ship Channel Security District update luncheon, was found it extremely informative, and left the meeting feeling reassured that Houston is in good hands.

I also left the meeting with some facts that surprised me, and thought I would share some of them here.

Houston is the busiest port in the Nation!
Harris County Sheriff's Office is responsible for much of the port security both on land and water, and is the 3rd largest police force in the country.
If the Houston Port System had to be shut down for a day because of an "EVENT", it could cost the local economy 300 Million dollars a day.
A common quote that I've heard over the past couple of years was restressed "so goes the port of Houston, so goes the National Economy"

Turning Basing Terminal Truck Office

2011-11-10T07:57:00.000-06:00

Faxed Delivery Orders will soon be History at Port of Houston Turning Basin Terminal Truck office.

The Port of Houston Magazine reported in their September/October issue that After December 31, 2011 faxed or e-mailed dock receipts or delivery orders will no longer be accepted at the North Side Turning Basin Terminal Truck Office. This change will affect drivers delivering or picking up cargo from the public wharves on the lower level.

The Policy Change will enable the Port Authority to better serve all of its customers because it will expedite the processing of trucks through the Truck office, eliminate unnecessary delays and reduce the possibility of errors.

Port of Houston Turning Basin upgrades under way to meet today's TRADE!

2011-11-04T10:55:00.000-05:00

"In the beginning the Ship Channel was built on the backbone of cotton" says the port's managing director of general cargo facilities.

These days, steel is king, with more than 3.1 million tons moving through the port in the first nine months of this year, up from 1.9 million tons over the same period last year.

from Houston Chronicle Article 10/29/11 Jenalia Moreno jenalia.moreno@chron.com

Opening the Panama Canal to TEXAS

2011-11-02T08:53:00.001-05:00

"As Jeff Moseley sees it, the widening of the Panama Canal is a "Game Changer" for Texas Business and the Lone Star State's Economy.

In a recent article in NBIZ Magazine Jeff Moseley President and Chief executive officer of the Greater Houston Partnership, states "It literally will allow Houston to serve the mid-continental United States ~ approximately 100 Million Americans.

The article goes on to share "As the waterway approaches capacity, the expanded canal will improve the flow of international commerce. The anticipated increase in containerized cargo going to Houston alone could grow by 15 percent in the next few years, with a projected 150 percent increase to a total of 4.5 million TEUs by 2030.

We at Dixie Cullen are excited about the future, and are poised to assist our customers with their storage and transloading needs.

Love it, or Hate it, CSA is here to stay!

2011-10-20T07:05:00.000-05:00

Whether you applaud or oppose the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration's new truck-safety monitoring program, the Compliance, Safety, Accountability (CSA) initiative will no doubt impact the way your carriers operate. Here's what you need to know.

Since its unveiling in 2010, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration's (FMCSA) new Compliance, Safety, Accountability (CSA) program has sparked significant interest from the transportation industry. Outcries that the new truck-safety monitoring program will place a stranglehold on the motor carrier industry and cause a severe dwindling of the driver workforce vie against passionate belief that CSA will provide the industry with concise and transparent data that can reduce safety risks on the nation's highways.

A point somewhere between the two extremes seems to be the most realistic outcome of the new program, which the government began enforcing in 2011.

Read full article…

2011-09-02T09:07:00.000-05:00

ALERT

For more information, contact:
Kyle Burns, President & CEO
Office: 210.229.9036
Email: kburns@freetradealliance.org
http://www.freetradealliance.org/

Release date: September 1, 2011

Cross - border Trucking Program

on the Road in the Right Direction

San Antonio, TX - In ongoing discussion with the United States Department of Transportation, Free Trade Alliance has learned that seven companies from Mexico have applied to be a part of the Cross-border Trucking Program, two of which are pending U.S. approval to begin crossing the border by the end of September. It is at that time that Mexico will potentially suspend the remaining 50% retaliatory tariffs it placed on U.S. goods entering Mexico.

"Climate Controlled" Storage Space in Demand

2011-08-24T08:08:00.000-05:00

As we're getting ready to start our 16th year in business, we realize that we have continued to grow and service our customers by offering the services that they need.

One of the services that we have been offering the past couple of years in our Temperature/Humidity Controlled Space, it has been in such demand that we just expanded the space available by another 18,000 square feet.

This space is designed for "Industrial Material", "Machinery" and "Equipment". Our onsite heavy lift capacity can easily handle Motor Control Units, Compressor, Transformers and more.

Next time you're in South East Houston, please drop in for a tour.

Global Economic Cooperation and Recovery

2011-06-30T13:58:00.000-05:00

Dixie Cullen

hosts a visit and facility tour from the

U. S. Department of State

International Visitor - Leadership Program

A Multi Regional Project

Global Economic

Cooperation and Recovery

The U. S. Department of State, International Visitor - Leadership Program, targeted Dixie Cullen Interest for a facility tour of their operation here in South East Houston. This program brought representatives in to discuss how old industrial facilities can be revitalized and put into operation employing more people.

This group is made up of representatives from 7 different countries and is part of a Multi Regional Project for Global Economic Cooperation and Recovery.

Countries included Israel, Brazil, Srilanka, Tunisia, Nigeria, South Africa, United Arab Emirates and Turkey.

It was a wonderful opportunity to showcase Dixie Cullen Interests and the services we offer the international community.

So Far, Japan Earthquake has minimal impact on Trade at Port of Houston

2011-05-23T13:22:00.000-05:00

The Port Of Houston Magazine
March/April

The massive earthquake and tsunami in Japan had a minimal impact on the Port of Houston.

Japan is not a major trading partner in the Port of Houston or the Port of Houston Authority, accounting for 0.7 percent of all imports and 1.9 percent of all exports to the Port of Houston in 2010. Japan accounted for 1.2 percent of loaded container imports and 0.7 percent of loaded container exports for Port Authority container terminals.

Supply chain's in Japan and beyond have been disrupted by the disaster, including auto parts supply chains linked with the United States, so some U.S. businesses have been affected. Cars and auto parts make up the majority of the 6.4 percent of imports from Japan into the U.S. annually. About 4.7 percent of all U.S. exports go to Japan.

The largest amount of containerized cargo that comes to the United States from Japan goes through the west coast and is railed to destinations in the U.S., noted Ricky Kunz, Port of Houston Authority Vice President Origination. That includes most auto parts bound for the Toyota plant in San Antonio.

Some impact is expected to be seen in movements of steel because of Japanese plants shutting down.

Texas Economy hits highest point in Two Years!

2011-04-16T09:57:00.000-05:00

Report: Texas economy hits highest point in two years

Published: April 14, 2011

The Texas economy is performing better now than anytime in the last two years, Comerica Bank reported this week.

View full article

Galveston to be Containerized?

2011-03-01T08:17:00.000-06:00

This article caught our attention, as our warehouse is only about 45 minutes from the Port of Galveston, and this could be of interest to many of our customers.
Breakbulk Staff Tue, 02/22/2011 - 15:35
Breakbulk Online - News Story

Breakbulk port may accept new investors, add boxes to mix

The Port of Galveston, Texas, could be adding containers to its mix of breakbulk, project, bulk and cruise business if a proposed partnership between Hutchison Port Holdings and The Carlyle Group comes to fruition.

The possibility was announced earlier this month when the port’s governing Wharves Board asked port staff to negotiate an agreement for a 75-year master lease with the partnership.

Hutchison wants to bring containers to Galveston, which has been concentrating on breakbulk, ro-ro and project cargo, including high volumes of wind turbine components. The port has gone after container business in the past but the attempt sagged in the face of nearby Houston’s massive operations. The port auctioned off its rusting container cranes several years ago and dedicated the contianer terminal to ro-ro and other breakbulk cargoes.

The new agreement is likely to add containers to the present mix rather than be a major shift, according to Capt. John G. Peterlin III, senior director of marketing and administration for the Port of Galveston.

As outlined, the Hutchison deal would include a new 100-acre container terminal on the west end of Galveston Island, a 20-acre terminal for ro-ro cargo such as farm and industrial vehicles on the east end, and possibly a second container terminal on nearby Pelican.

Galveston’s Wharves Board of Trustees last April hired the Bank of Montreal to look for private investors for the port. Of 80 firms solicited, only the Hutchison-Carlyle joint venture, formed expressly to bid on the Galveston project, was found acceptable by BMO. Hutchison Port Holdings operates more than 50 ports worldwide and handles between 10 and 15 percent of the global container market. The Carlyle Group is a private equity firm based in Washington, D.C.

If an agreement is reached the Port would recieve an approximately US$60 million debt pay off, a share of revenue and profits from cruise and freight business, cash for capital improvements over a 10-year period, and other cash payments. A master lease proposal could be brought before the Wharves Board by this summer, according to local news outlets.

.

Texas Port Watch: A Year in Review

2011-02-02T11:04:00.000-06:00

In 2010 nearly 15,000 ships called on Texas ports – an increase of 11.4% over 2009. 68% of those vessels steamed into Galveston Bay bound for the ports of Galveston, Texas City or Houston. The port of Houston received the lion’s share of those vessels accounting for 47% of the State’s entire volume of deep water arrivals. All told, 2010 was a welcome respite from the doldrums of 2009.

The port of Galveston saw the most impressive gains of the year with a 52% increase and ended the year with a 13% increase over the month of November. Energy appeared to be a dominant feature in the rebound as the energy-centric ports of Texas City and Sabine registered nearly identical annual increases of 22%. Albeit Texas City posted identical month-to-month numbers while Sabine saw 13% more vessel arrivals in December as compared to November.

The Port of Houston experienced a modest gain of 2% over November’s vessel arrival count and finished the year with an annual gain of nearly 8%. There were some interesting month-to-month figures as the year came to end. Specifically, the private docks which comprise the vast majority of the vessel arrival numbers – approximately 70% - were down 1% for the month. Conversely, the public dock vessel numbers were up 11% with general cargo leading the pack. In fact, this category was up 20% in December for the entire port.

Another December trend was that the majority of the storage facilities along the Houston Ship Channel were down – a not unusual event given end-of-year-tax considerations associated with bulk tank farm inventories. Nonetheless, for the year, most of the terminals that handle crude and chemicals saw ship arrival gains in the range of 9 to nearly 30%. This should not come as a surprise as December’s tank vessel arrivals was just 2 shy of August’s high of 317 – a 3.5% increase from November.

Judging by preliminary reports for January vessel movements, it is likely the upward trend will continue into the Spring as crude prices remain strong and natural gas prices continue to firm. Hopefully, trade activity for Texas ports will reflect a modest return to those heady trade days prior to the onset of the Great Recession.

-Tom Marian, Buffalo Marine Service

Obtaining Carrier Safety reports

2010-12-20T07:42:00.000-06:00

Now that CSA is "official" and in full implementation, you maybe asking yourself how to check on your carriers for their safety ratings.

Go to http://ai.fmcsa.dot.gov/sms/ and enter the motor carrier's MC# or US DOT#. This will take you into the SMS results for the particular motor carrier and you can click on the individual BASIC to see what individual data created the score.

Animals need help too!

2010-12-15T12:23:00.000-06:00

Yes, animals need our help too!

If you have been to our facility you know that we have several "dogs" onsite, who think they're just part of the Dixie Cullen TEAM, and they are. Which is why when we received the "call for help" from the Rescue Bank came we were up for the task.

Our warehouse facility received truckloads of dog and cat food that were donated, that needed to be received and distributed to numerous organizations who foster, adopt and rescue pets. We helped to load out the much needed food to the various organizations that the Rescue Bank supports.

IMPORTANT DATE: December 5, 2010

2010-10-26T06:55:00.000-05:00

CSA 2010 – When does it Begin?

On December 5, 2010, the Federal Motor Carriers Safety Administration (FMCSA) will replace the Safe STAT system and will switch compliance monitoring to the Comprehensive Safety Analysis, 2010 (CSA 2010) system

Break Bulk Conference 2010 Houston

2010-10-25T07:27:00.000-05:00

ITMA, The Transportation Club of Houston, The Association for Global Logistics & Transportation, Organization of Women In Transportation, and Houston Maritime Arbitrators Association answered questions and promoted their clubs at the 21st Annual Breakbulk Americas Conference at the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston on October 11th-15th. More than 3,800 attendees and nearly 220 exhibits broke previous years' attendance records in both categories.

Opportunity Houston

2010-10-18T12:24:00.000-05:00

Distribution and Logistics

One of the reasons that we chose to locate our business in the Greater Houston area was location. Close to the Port of Houston, and 1/2 way between east and west coasts.

Our location has been a major asset to our growth, and we find that we're not the only Company thinking that way. The Greater Houston Partnership, produces a quarterly magazine about "Opportunity Houston". This particular issue deals with Distribution and Logistics here in the Greater Houston Area.

This magazine also quotes some wonderful statistics:

16 Major Highways serve the Houston Area

1,212 is the Number of non-local trucking firms that serve Houston

220 Million tons of cargo moved in 2009, as more than 7,700 ships called at the Port of Houston

For more GREAT Information and TIDBITS read the entire Magazine

http://www.houston.org/

Journal of Commerce reports Houston Steel, Container Volumes Increase

2010-10-05T07:24:00.001-05:00

Houston Steel, Container Volumes Increase

Joseph Bonney
Fri, 10/01/2010 - 14:30
The Journal of Commerce Online - News Story

Alternating trend reflects up and down overall economy

Steel and container volumes rose last month at the Port of Houston. The change followed what port CEO Alec G. Dreyer described as a "good month, bad month" pattern reflecting the overall economy.

Steel volume during August totaled 285,000 tons, a fourfold increase from a year earlier. Port CEO Alex G. Dreyer said export steel volume of 60,467 tons was the highest since March 2008. He said overall steel volume during September is expected to total 320,000 to 325,000 tons.

Container traffic in August totaled 152,077 20-foot-equivalent units, up 8.2 percent from a year earlier. Imports rose 6.2 percent to 71,702 TEUs while exports increased 9.2 percent to 80,375 TEUs. Volume through August totaled 1.2 million TEUs, an increase of 2.3 percent.

The port commission signed a two-year, $340,000 contract with Ben Line Agencies Limited Singapore to help the port promote its trade with Asia. Houston handles two-thirds of the container traffic through Gulf ports and is trying to attract Asian services through the Panama Canal, which is adding larger locks to accommodate 12,000-TEU ships.

Letters of Credit Boot Camp

2010-09-27T15:05:00.001-05:00

Letters of Credit Boot Camp

Basic Training for Clean and Profitable Letters of Credit

Wednesday October 20th

8 am to 3 pm

University of Houston ~ Small Business Development Center

2302 Fannin, Ste 200, Houston TX

Speakers

Madeline Sprague, VP Global Trade Services

JP Morgan Chase

Jolie Cosman, CEO

LetterofCreditCollection.com

Hear about best practices to create clean L/C's
Learn about INCOTERMS
UCP 600, ISPB: Learn How to Use Them to YOUR advantage
Review case studies of good and bad L/C/s
and more

Cost: OWIT Members $75.00

Non-members $90.00

Includes continental Breakfast and Lunch

RSVP http://www.owit-hou.org/

2010-09-22T08:59:00.000-05:00

To find out more about American Business Womens Association

http://www.abwa.org/

2010-08-26T07:22:00.000-05:00

Cargo Insurance Claims

Given the number of loads that we receive in and out of our warehouse facality, paying attention to the small details, photo journaling each load, notating damages, immediately notifying our customers when such damage is found, and yes it does occur. But what happens once you our customer receive the information from us. Or what happens when it's shipped direct to your facility. Each step that you take is very important to the recovery of your losses.

Below is a link to a wonderful article on Basic Steps to follow when a claim occurs.

Following some basic steps when a cargo claim occurs will vastly improve the outcome of this process. See my recent article on pg. 39 in...

Click here for entire article

2010-08-17T15:05:00.000-05:00

Houston Business Journal

Announces . . . . .

Dixie Cullen Interests Inc.

Congratulations,

Your firm [Dixie Cullen] has made the

2010 Houston Fast 100!

Your outstanding achievement as a growing Houston business has earned you a place on the Houston Business Journal's Houston Fast 100 list.

It will be announced where in the Houston Fast 100 we have placed to those attending the Houston Fast 100 awards ceremony on Friday, September 24, 2010, 11:00 am - 1:30 pm, Westin Galleria Hotel, 5060 W. Alabama in the Galleria Ballroom.

2010-08-04T07:05:00.000-05:00

JULY 2010 HAVE YOU HEARD?

Houston Creates More Jobs than any other U.S. City in Last Five Years

The Houston region has been named the nation’s No. 1 job creator over the last five years in a recent ranking from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. From June, 2005 to June, 2010, our region added 129,800 jobs. Over this same period, 84 major markets sustained employment losses while Houston was one of only 16 major markets to boast a gain in employment.

The first half of this year alone, the region has confirmed by its rankings and third-party validations that it is one of America’s areas of choice to live, work and play.

Additional rankings for the Houston region. visit http://www.houston.org/

Cari Broderson
Greater Houston Partnership

2010-07-25T09:51:00.000-05:00

Logistics Professionals Should Prepare for FMCSA Final Ruling

July 23, 2010 -- Roanoke Trade

The Department of Transportation's Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) issued a final rule (49 CFR Parts 365 and 387) which is effective March 21, 2011. It will affect cargo insurance requirements for most for-hire motor common carriers of property and freight forwarders.

The new rule, applicable to the above mentioned parties, eliminates the requirement to (1) maintain cargo insurance in prescribed minimum amounts and (2) file evidence of insurance with the FMCSA. There will be no change for household goods motor carriers and household goods freight forwarders, who will continue to be subject to the cargo insurance requirement.

What Does this Mean to Logistics Managers?

There are about 166,700 for-hire motor carriers and 1,600 freight forwarders registered with FMCSA today. Given the upcoming change, it is going to be more important than ever to have proof of insurance for each for-hire common carrier or freight forwarder with which your company works. Logistics managers will no longer be able to rely on the FMCSA to ensure that their truckers maintain at least minimum levels of insurance.

How to Prepare

Take proactive measures to help manage your financial exposure when contracting with for-hire motor common carriers of property and freight forwarders:

Require a certificate of insurance evidencing worker's compensation, general liability, automobile liability, and motor truck cargo liability insurance from all truckers.

Ensure that you are named as a certificate holder.

Ensure coverage is placed with an insurance company with an A.M. Best's Financial Strength Rating of "A-" or better.

Set up a reminder in your calendar to request updated certificates of insurance on an annual basis. Request this information at least 30 days before the carrier's insurance expires.

When using freight or property brokers, require proof of contingent cargo insurance. This provides an additional level of cargo coverage should the trucker's insurance fail to respond.

Instruct your operations team not to use carriers unless updated and satisfactory insurance is on file.

Motor truck cargo liability limits should be no less than the value of the cargo that you tender to them.

Visit the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration's website www.safersys.org to review trucker safety ratings, insurance details, and accident information.

Seek the advice of your Roanoke Trade representative to understand the limitations, exclusions, and other restrictions of motor truck cargo insurance.

Avoid unnecessary transportation risks in the supply chain. Contact Roanoke Trade today and we'll assist you with proactive measures to reduce financial exposure for you and your clients.

Sincerely,
Roanoke Trade Services, Inc.
Affiliate of Watkins Underwriters at Lloyd's and a Member of Munich Re
email: marketing@roanoketrade.com
phone: 1-800-ROANOKE

web: http://www.roanoketrade.com/
Houston: Theresa Garcia Email:theresa.garcia@roanoketrade.com

2010-07-09T07:11:00.000-05:00

Incoterms 2010

www.ICCIncoterms2010.org

Incoterms 2010 rules will come into force on January 1, 2011 and this will be the eighth Incoterms revision since their inception in 1936, and will be released in September. These revisions happen about every 10 years and this particular revision has taken over 2 1/2 years.

Visit the above website to find out more information and upcoming class schedules throughout the United States to bring you up todate on many of the changes.

2010-05-26T09:52:00.000-05:00

TRANSPORT TOPICS Special Report: CSA 2010 (Free PDF)

The government's new truck safety regime known as CSA 2010 is upon us. While the data for full implementation has slipped a bit lately, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration still intends to ramp up the program nationally this fall. Like any major regulatory initiative, there is confusion and misinformation on this important program. The CSA 2010 Special Report is an effort to help spell out in detail what CSA 2010 will and won't do, and provide industry executives and managers with information they need to know to prepare for its full implementation.

The CSA 2010 Special Report (originally published as a Supplement to the April, 26 issue of Transport Topics) is an effort to help spell out in detail what CSA 2010 will and won't do, and provide industry executives with information they need to know to prepare for its full implementation.

Please feel free to distribute to your colleagues and others interested in the topic.

To open the CSA 2010 PDF, click here.

Transport Topics,
950 N Glebe Road

Arlington, VA 22203

(703) 838-1770

2010-04-29T10:03:00.000-05:00

TEAMING: A way of doing business

Over the years we have TEAMED with machinery movers, machine dealers and freight forwarders to enable them to offer a complete project package for their customers. Most recently we have been able to TEAM with Stone Machinery Movers on a project for one of their customers involving plant relocations from multiple locations across the country. By choosing to TEAM with us, they are able to stage everything at our warehouse versus taking room on the factory floor and greatly reducing the space available for the installation of the equipment at the plant. It also reduces the extra handling of moving things from spot to spot as that space is needed for equipment installation. Everything is handled at our facility with overhead cranes so that we can just pick out what the end customer requires without extra handling and delays.

This process also allows for everything to be layed out and organized so that everyone can see what there is, determine what order is needed and move forward in a structured manner.

Why not contact us TODAY to see how we can assist you in working as a TEAM to complete that next project.

Organization of Women in International Trade Sponsors:

2010-04-22T15:44:00.001-05:00

Continental Breakfast

Welcome and Introductions

Import Updates:

U. S. Import Requirements: Celia Ridel, Assistant Port Director - Trade Operations

Import Licensing / Compliance: Marian Ladner Attorney Ladner & Associates

Cargo Owner/Operator Trends: Diana Urelius, Manager Trade Compliance & Audit Resources Mitsubishi Caterpillar Forklift

Newtorking Luncheon

Export Updates:

Export Compliance & Licensing: Pam Plagens, Senior Trade Specialist, US Department of Commerce and Pamela Nieto Attorney, Baker & Hostetler

Transportation & Logistics:

Questions & Answers:

Tuesday May 18th

8AM to 3PM

University of Houston

Small Business Development Center

2302 Fannin, Ste 200

Houston, TX 77002

for registration form email: catherine@dixiecullen.com

2010-04-15T14:47:00.002-05:00

Our Gantry Crane is perfect for heavy lifts . . .

It's been an exciting week here at Dixie Cullen, projects shipping out and equipment coming in. It's the perfect week for a company such as ours.

We had several of these 108,000 pound pieces come in within a matter of hours of each other.

2010-03-09T14:22:00.000-06:00

A FEW INTERESTING FACTS -- TEXAS
FROM THE FREE TRADE ALLIANCE IN SAN ANTONIO TX

For the 8th consecutive year, Texas has been ranked the No. 1 export state in the United States. Texas' exports totaled more than $163 billion for 2009, with top export recipients being Mexico, Canada, China, the Netherlands, and Korea.

These countries imported $56 billion, $13.7 billion, $8.9 billion, $6 billion, and $5.3 billion in Texas manufactured goods, respectively. Texas' top exporting industries in 2009 were computers and electronics, chemicals, machinery, petroleum and coal, and transportation equipment.

According to a recent study and announced by Governor Perry, San Antonio and six other metropolitan areas in Texas are expected to be among the first to emerge from the recession.

2010-03-02T08:22:00.000-06:00

CSA 2010

As motor carrier companies know, noncompliance undermines safety and usually results in costly repairs and penalties. Safety on our highways is and must continue to be a priority for the transportation industry as a whole.

The Comprehensive Safety Analysis (CSA) 2010 is a new system that will ensure safety is at the forefront of our work. This program will redefine audits as we currently recognize them through focused and comprehensive investigations. It is believed this transformation will ultimately reduce truck related crashes by implementing a new protocol for enforcement as well as improving safety monitoring, evaluation and intervention processes.

We know that CSA 2010 will affect every carrier in the nation. This stringent process charts immediate and continuous observations of carrier and driver performance.

As the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) shifts from one regulation model towards a more efficient and effective model, it is pertinent that companies are prepared to adhere to this new compliance program and understand the regulations to which they are subject.

Educate yourself and your employees about CSA 2010 through the informational pieces presented here.

What You Can Do to Impact CSA 2010 •Understand the CSA 2010 Methodology
•Obtain and Review Motor Carrier Safety Profile
•Clean Up CSA 2010 Data Files
•Update Your Census Data Regularly Via the MCS-150
•Compare Past Violations (last 24 months) to High Severity Weighted Violations
•Know Why Your Trucks Are Getting Inspected
•Raise Driver’s Awareness of Importance of Clean Inspections
•Review Driver Safety History When Hiring: Pre-employment Screening Program
•Manage Driver Behavior and Safety Practices
•File Comments on CSA 2010

http://www.tmta.com/

2010-02-22T09:57:00.003-06:00

Houston Chapter of Organization of Women in International Trade

Quarterly Meeting Tuesday February 23rd

11:30 am to 1:00 pm

University of Houston

Small Business Development Center

2302 Fannin, Ste 200. Houston TX 77002

Non-Members $15.00

Lunch available at additional cost of $10.00

What Lies Ahead

The 2010 Economic Outlook for the Houston Region

Guest Speaker: Patrick Jankowski -- Greater Houston Partnership

Patrick is a regional economist and the vice president of research at the Greater Houston Partnership. He oversees GHP's research department with provides information gathering, data analysis, database management, economic forecasting and mapping functions for the organization.

RSVP ngarza@nmtprojects.com

OWIT-Houston is a Texas non-profit organization founded to expand business skills and public awareness of international trade issues and how they relate to and affect women.

OWIT-Houston membership is comprised of women and men whose careers encompass all aspects of international trade including import, export, sales, marketing, finance, law, customs brokerage, logistics, government, economic development and consulting. Membership benefits include networking and educational opportunities, leadership development, international affiliation, membership directory and job banks.

www.owit-hou.org

2010-01-21T10:55:00.002-06:00

Shippers see worst Great Lakes year in seven decades
Breakbulk Industry News

With the lowest cargo valume in 71 years for iron ore and the worst in 77 years for coal, the two chief backbones of U. S. Great Lakes shipping, fleet leaders are expecting better shipping in 2010. But only mildly better.

The third biggest item for Great Lakes shipping, limestone, was down to it's lowest level in 25 years, since the recession year of 1984, to 23.5 million net tons.

link to balance of of article

Exports Increasing from our Almeda Geona Facility

2010-01-20T11:14:00.002-06:00

Since opening our Almeda Genoa facility we have seen a major increase not only the number of containers/flat racks and items going break bulk that are being prepared for export at our facility but also a wide variety products.

Steel Coils, Tires, steel bar, construction equipment, mobile cranes even a few motor vehicles, machine tools and an assortment of project cargo.

Included in the services that we offer our export clients is the planning and laying out the loads, blocking with ISPM 15 Certificed blocking and dunnage. Preparing packing lists and photo journaling the project for our customers. But also making sure that fuel certificates and dock receipts are in hand to go with the shipment to avoid delays. Scheduling with freight forwarders and trucking companies are all in a days work for us. This saves time and worry for our customers.

Decline of 2009 has bottomed out

2010-01-18T13:53:00.004-06:00

Energy Information Administration predicts rising oil demand, prices
January 15, 2010 Break Bulk Connection

Global oil demand fell in 2009 and 2008, the first time since 1983 that oil demand has fallen for two consecutive years, according to a short-term energy outlook released this week by the US Energy Information Administration. However, the decline bottomed out in mid-2009 and the EIA expects recovery to continue with oil demand growth of 1.1 million barrels per day in 2010 and 1.5 million bbl/d in 2011.

Countries outside of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development will lead 2010 demand recovery while OECD countries should see some demand growth in 2011, the EIA said. Overall, China is expected to lead world consumption demand growth with estimated increases of more than 0.4 million bbl/d both years.

The EIA expects the benchmark West Texas Intermediate crude oil price per barrel, which averaged $62/bbl in 2009, to average $80 in 2010 and $84 in 2011. EIA’s forecast assumes U.S. GDP growth of 2 percent in 2010 and 2.7 percent in 2011 and world oil-consumption-weighted growth of 2.5 percent in 2011 and 3.7 percent in 2011.

The EIA also expects annual average natural gas spot prices in the U.S. to increase from $4.06 per thousand cubic feet (Mcf) in 2009 to $5.36 Mcf in 2010 and $6.12 Mcf in 2011.
Global investments in oil and gas exploration and development, and related heavy-lift and project cargo movement, can be expected to increase as oil and gas prices rise.

2009-11-24T07:20:00.004-06:00

World Steel Production Increases in October
Breakbulk News 11/23/09

Production of crude steel, a key breakbulk cargo, in the 66 countries that report to the World Steel Associaiton increased 3% from September to October, or to 112,177 Million metric tons from 108,816 metric tons. However, total global steel production for the ten months through October lagged 13.5%, reaching only 982,143 metrick tons compared to 1,135,544 during the same period of 2008.

Chinese steel production during the first ten months of 2009 was 472,474 metric ton, an increase of 10.5% over the same perios in 2008. China's ten-month 2009 total accounted for 48% of global total for the period. Japan accounted for about 7% of the global total; Russia, about 5%; India, about 5%, US, about 5%, South Korea, about 4% and the EU, about 11%

2009-10-30T15:48:00.002-05:00

Implementation of Debarking Requirements

The American Lumber Standard Committee has notified agencies accredited for Wood Packaging Material that the European Union has implement a debarking requirement as of July this year. At this time the SPIB is not obligated to enforce this requirements so compliance is a business decision for the producer.

The anticipated restriction is that areas of bark up to 3 centimeters wide are unlimited in length or if over 3 centimeters wide can not exceed the size of a credit card. This restriction is based on a proposed change to the ISPM 15

2009-10-29T15:38:00.002-05:00

Breakinig News:

U. S. Truck Driver Hours of Service rules to be Re-written

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), in response to a legal challenge to the current hours of service (HOS) regulations, will completely rewrite the 2008 HOS reuglations. The agency will issue a proposed rulemaking within 9 months and a new Final Rule in less than two years.

This settlement is in response to a legal challenge brought against FMCSA by Public Citizen, Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, the Truck Safety Coalition and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. In March 2009 the groups asked a DC Appeals court to throw out the HOS rule. The March 2009 challenge was the third challenge to the Bush Administration's HOS rules.

2009-09-30T11:25:00.003-05:00

11th Fastest Growning Woman Owned Business

Dixie Cullen Intersts was honored by the Houston Business Journal as "Houston's 11th Fastest Growing Woman Owned Business".

Our management and customer services TEAMS have been instrumental in this growth, by providing our customers with quality service.

We also wish to Thank You, our customers for entrusting us with your industrial storage and export packing needs.

It will be our pleasure to continue serving you and your needs in the future.

Cargo off at Texas ports | Breakbulk Industry News

2009-09-08T16:25:00.001-05:00

Cargo off at Texas ports | Breakbulk Industry News

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2009-09-02T13:21:00.000-05:00

All Companies Need Economic Operator Registration and Identification Number (EORI)

From Export News Newsletter - US Export Assistance Center

As of July 1, 2009, nearly all companies doing business in the EU or companies exporting to the EU will need an Economic Operator Registration and Identification number (EORI as EORI numbers are required for Customers Declarations and to apply for Authorized Economic Operator status. Member states may have different procedures for applying for EORI numbers and exporters will be required to register for EORI in the first member state they do business in after July 1. Any companies that do not have EORI number or do not know if they have one should be sure to check the EU Customs page that explains whi is impacted.

For more details see www.buyusa.gov/europeanunion/whatsnew.html

Pam Plagens Pam.plagens@mail.doc.gov

Nyamusi Igambi Nyamusi.igambi@mail.doc.gov

2009-09-01T17:10:00.003-05:00

What's New in the European Union

From the September issue of Export News - U S Export Assistance Center

New Requirements for US Exporters of Machines:

As of December 29, 2009 when the new MACHINE SAFETY DIRECTIVE (2006/42/EC) becomes mandatory, US exporters of machines will need to identify a person established in the European Union who is authorized to keep the manufactuer's technical file or have quick access to it. This person's name must appear on the declaration of conformity along with the name and address of the manufacturer. The person could be no more than a letterbox, a point of contact for the authorities in case there are questions about confomrity of the machine or about accidents. The person based in Europe could be the importer/distributor, a lawyer, an authorized representative, or any other person. The manufacturer remains responsible for compiling the technical file. This requirement is an example of the beefed up surveillance and enforcement the EU is putting into effect to back up the CE marking program.

For your copy of Export News

Nyamusi Igambi - Senior Trade Specialist Nyamusi.igambi@mail.doc.gov

Pam Plagens - Senior Trade Specialist Pam.plagens@mail.doc.gov

2009-08-17T05:46:00.000-05:00

Low dollar boosts used equipment exports

posted by bwyker Breakbulk News

If there is any silver lining for the shipping industry in the clouds enveloping the US economy, it's the increase in exports fueled by the weakness of the dollar. For the breakbulk and project cargo sector of the industry, the export boom has generated a big increase in shipments of used construction and agricultural equipment, dismantled plants, old locomotives and high and heavy vehicles.

The trend is so pronounced that some breakbulk ports are beginning to look like giant garage sales -- with every inch of storage yard stacked high wuth used cranes, dismantled refining equipment, graders, bulldozers, harvesters and tractors.

Read more on this artical -- click here

2009-08-16T11:36:00.000-05:00

Carloads Grow at Large Railroads

posted by jnodar On July 16, 2009 Breakbulk Industry News

Carlaodings of machinery and bulk materials rose in the latest week to the strongest level in three months at major U. S. railroads, as freight picked up after the slow July 4 holiday period

The latest weekly rail traffic report is in line with other signs that the economy continues to bump along the bottom, with some idnicatiors that strength is returning bu others showing freight sectors are flattened or moving in an up and down pattern over the weeks.

Read more of this article click here

2009-08-15T11:21:00.002-05:00

Wind Power's Long and Winding Road
Break Bulk News August 10, 2009 Peter Leach

Stephen Donchez feels the pain of drivers who get stuck behind one of his big rigs.

"Motorists hate to see us on the road because we're slow moving and slow down traffic." said Donchez, president of American Transport Systems, a Vineland NJ motor carrier that specializes in carrying massive, oversize wind power components.

American drivers had better get used to the frustration, because they're likely to see a lot more big righs hauling windmill blades, towers and turbines on U. S. roadways: energy economists expect wind farms will produce 20 percent of the U. S. electricity supply by 2020. That means a multitude of new wind farms nationwide.

Read more of this article

2009-07-21T11:33:00.004-05:00

Most American's Support Heavier Trucks

from eTrucker.com news

The Coalition for Transportation Productivity, a coalition of more than 100 shippers and allied associations seeking increased federal weight limits on interstate highways, today, July 15, announced the results of a national poll it says demonstrates a majority of Americans support raising interstate trucks weight limits without making trucks larger.

To read more about the survey and key findings click here

2009-07-17T06:04:00.003-05:00

Ocean Carriers Planning a $500.00 Rate Hike

for Asia - US Containers

The 14 shipping lines of the Transpacific Stabalization agreement are planning to increase rates for Asia - US Containers starting August 1st.

To read more : click here

2009-07-16T09:53:00.003-05:00

US Trade Gap Lowest in 9 years!

The BBC reported:

The US saw it's deficit narrow to $26 bn in May, it's lowest level i more then nie years, according to figures from the commerce department.

Imports continued to fall while exports increased, pushing the deficit to it's lowest level since November 1999.

2009-06-10T03:37:00.002-05:00

U.S. Box Imports Plummet 22 Percent
Bill Mongelluzzo Jun 9, 2009 6:28PM GMTThe Journal of Commerce Online - News Story

Slight April gain over March gives weak signal for peak season

Container volumes at U.S. ports edged up in April compared to March, but remained well below the volumes recorded in April 2008, according to the monthly Port Tracker published by the National Retail Federation and IHS Global Insight.

The second half of 2009 appears to be trending the same way the first half progressed, with containerized imports creeping up compared to the month before, but down noticeably from the same month last year.

It therefore looks like the back-to-school shopping season this summer, traditionally the second busiest period on retailers' calendars, will be disappointing. Prospects for the holiday shopping season that follows look equally bleak.

These developments are reflected directly in the cargo volumes moving through the eight major U.S. container gateways covered by Port Tracker.

"Retailers are still being cautious with their inventory levels in anticipation of slow sales this summer into the fall," said Jonathan Gold, vice president for supply chain and customs policy at the National Retail Federation.

Containerized imports in April increased 2 percent over March, but were down 22 percent compared to April 2008, according to Port Tracker. April was the third lowest month since 2004 and marked the 22nd month in a row of year-over-year declines in volume.

Projections call for May to be down 21 percent and June 19 percent from the same months last year. Port Tracker projects that containerized imports in the first half of 2009 will be down 21 percent compared to the first six months of 2008.

Port Tracker projects volumes in the peak summer-fall months through October will be down about 16 to 18 percent compared to peak season 2008.

Logistically, the U.S. port and intermodal transportation networks are operating efficiently and without any disruptions. Ports are congestion-free from vessel to gate. Rail service levels are good and the harbor trucking industry is operating with excess capacity.

On the other hand, all of these transportation industries are struggling with weak revenues and over-capacity.

Introduction of the federal security program known as the Transportation Worker Identification Credential has successfully taken place at all major gateways.

Contact Bill Mongelluzzo at bmongelluzzo@joc.com.

2009-06-09T06:52:00.000-05:00

Shippers Throw Support to Heavier Trucks
John Gallagher Jun 8, 2009 7:12PM GMTThe Journal of Commerce Online - News Story

Coalition supports bill to raise size, weight limits on interstates

Big shippers are throwing their weight behind legislation allowing heavier trucks on federal roads as a way to boost carrier productivity, save fuel, and cut transportation costs.

The Coalition for Transportation Productivity, representing more than 100 associations and companies such as the National Industrial Transportation League, Kraft Foods, Archer Daniels Midland and International Paper, is urging Congress to raise federal vehicle weight limits on U.S. interstates to 97,000 lbs. through its support of the Safe and Efficient Transportation Act of 2009. The measure was introduced in Congress March 30.

The legislation stipulates raising the weight limits would only be allowed for vehicles equipped with a sixth axle, which would maintain braking capacity and weight distribution per tire. The bill imposes a user fee for six-axle units to fund bridge repair.

More freight on fewer trucks would also make roads safer, says CTP Co-chairman John Runyan.
“Accident rates among heavy vehicles are strongly tied to the vehicle miles a truck must travel to deliver a ton of freight,” he said. Allowing heavier trucks “would reduce the number of vehicle miles and overall number of trucks needed to deliver a specific amount of freight, making roads safer while cutting fuel and emissions by as much as 19 percent for each ton carried.”

Railroads have long opposed such legislation, claiming raising truck weight limits would give them a competitive edge in the fight over shipper dollars. The AAR cites a 1999 DOT study suggesting increasing truck size and weights would result in a decline in rail revenue of between $2.9 billion and $6.7 billion. Rail earnings would decline 32 percent to 46 percent, and rail car-miles would decline 4 percent to 20 percent, the study said.

Contact John Gallagher at jgallagher@joc.com.

2009-06-05T14:38:00.000-05:00

Texas makes Port of Brownsville overweight corridor program permanent
May 21, 2009 Breakbulk News

Texas Governor Rick Perry has signed legislation that will permanently allow overweight freight to be transported by truck between the Port of Brownsville and Mexico. The corridor allows trucks carrying primarily break bulk steel but also other cargoes to be loaded to Mexican truck weights. Without the corridor, said the port’s Deputy Director Donna Eymard, shippers would have to use two trucks instead of one and the steel Brownsville handles would move to Mexican ports.

Brownsville is one of the U.S.’s largest steel ports, handling more than 2 million tons during 2008. Virtually all of the port’s import steel goes to mills in northern Mexico to be processed. After processing, some of it is then re-exported.

Port Director and chief executive officer Eduardo A. Campirano said in the port’s statement that “this is great news for the state, the port, the county, the city, and the consumer. The overweight corridor program helps to insure the sustainable growth of the Port – the economic engine for the Rio Grande Valley and Northern Mexico.”

2009-05-13T10:08:00.001-05:00

Steel Imports Drop in March

May 5, 2009 May 5, 2009 – 1:48 pm-->By Alan Field Breakbulk from the Journal of Commerce

Shipping near record low, says industry group

The United States imported a total of 1.5 million net tons of steel in March, the American Iron and Steel Institute reported, based on preliminary Census Bureau data. Imports of this breakbulk cargo included 1.437 million net tons of finished steel, down 3 percent from February.
Precision Metalforming Association President William E. Gaskin said, “The continuing fall in steel imports in March is not a surprise given the lingering sluggishness in the U.S. manufacturing sector, which has had a real impact on our members. According to PMA’s most recent survey of business conditions, the number of metal forming companies with a portion of their workforce on short time or layoffs increased to 85 percent in April, up from 76 percent in March. And while optimism about expectations for new orders has risen over the past few months, current shipping levels remain near record lows.”

China dominates imports

In March, the largest volume of finished imports from offshore was from China (196,000 net tons, down 28 percent from February). The March tonnage from China was 14 percent of all finished imports. Other major offshore suppliers in March were Korea, Japan, and India.
March imports of hot-rolled steel dropped seven percent from February’s levels, from 152,983 to 141,792 metric tons. Cold-rolled steel imports also declined, from 111,625 metric tons in February to 96,236 metric tons in March, a drop of 14 percent.

Key products that increased in March compared to February included reinforcing bars (up 155 percent), mechanical tubing (up 46 percent), hot dipped galvanized sheet & strip (up 28 percent), line pipe (up 24 percent) and standard pipe (up 24 percent).

2009-05-09T13:33:00.000-05:00

Piracy could bring maritime trade to its knees:
By Michael Edwards
Posted Wed Apr 15, 2009 8:24am AEST Updated Wed Apr 15, 2009 9:14am AEST ABC News

Maritime experts say shipping will only get slower and more expensive unless something is done to stop the threat of Somali pirates.

As details continue to emerge about the dramatic rescue of the American ship Captain Richard Phillips, more questions are being asked about the impact of piracy on shipping routes.
This comes as Somali pirates raised the stakes this morning, seizing two more ships and throwing down the gauntlet to tough-talking US President Barack Obama.

To get an idea of the piracy situation off the horn of Africa, look at ABC News Online's interactive map.
The problem has already sent insurance rates up and more ships are opting to take the slower route around South Africa instead of through the Suez Canal.

Australia's shipping industry says it will have an adverse effect on the world economy as trade slows down.

Friends and colleagues of Captain Richard Phillips are still dealing with his dramatic rescue at the hands of US Navy Seal marksmen.

Shane Murphy is Captain Phillips's chief mate onboard the Maersk Alabama. I just got off the phone with our captain, Richard Phillips for the first time, and it was an extremely emotional experience for all of us to actually hear his voice and hear the condition he was in," he said.
"He is absolutely elated and he couldn't be prouder of us for doing what he trained us to do. And that's really, when the story unfolds you'll see that's really all we did.

"We did everything that we were trained to do. And we have the captain; ultimately everybody you see here before you today has the Captain, Captain Phillips, to thank for their lives and their freedom."

But despite the US Navy's victory this time, experts say the threat posed by Somali pirates is as strong as ever.

John Burnett is an expert on international piracy, and he told Radio National's breakfast program that poverty drives many young Somali men to become pirates.

"These kids, the young men, if they're lucky will earn probably even less than $30 a month. So when they become a pirate they will earn something in the hundreds of thousands and that's a hell of a lot more profitable and less risky than pulling up a half empty fishing net," he said.
And the toll extracted by the pirates is increasing.

There's the cost of ships out of commission as well as ransoms to free crews and extra security measures. Add to that rising insurance premiums and higher labour costs for crews travelling in the area.

And there are extra costs for shipping companies which are choosing to avoid the area.
Llew Russell is the chief executive of Shipping Australia, the peak body for Australia's shipping industry.

"We're most concerned about the increase in piracy that's been occurring particularly over the last few weeks," he said. "With the winter monsoons declining over there we're finding a big upsurge in piracy and we feel it will encourage more people to go around the Cape, which is much longer, consumes more fuel and is more costly."

Mr Russell says going to or from Europe around South Africa adds at least 10 to 14 days to an ocean voyage.

He says many shipping companies are being forced to pay for specialised equipment to thwart attacks.

"A ship thwarted an attack a week or so ago by putting barbed wire right around it. I mean, they're trailing nets out behind the ship to foul the propellers of their little speed boats and so on that they use. All these techniques are being used to try to thwart the attacks," he said.
Mr Russell says if nothing is done it's the world's economy which will suffer.

"I think it'll impact on world trade because you not only have Somalia, you have other countries looking at what Somalia's doing," he said.

"So I can only see the situation getting worse. The only way you can tackle this sort of piracy is on land.

"In fact one has to look at building up the economies of northern Somalia and helping those people in ways other than encouraging piracy. That I think is the longer term answer

2009-05-08T14:24:00.001-05:00

WTO's Lamy says Doha round relaunch awaits U.S.

Links to this article
By Doug PalmerReuters Friday, April 24, 2009; 11:08 PM

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A renewed push to finish long-running world trade talks cannot begin until the United States is ready to engage, the head of the World Trade Organization said on Friday.

Completing the Doha round of talks would help pull the global economy out of recession by unleashing new trade flows and "help restore confidence at this moment of crisis," Pascal Lamy, the WTO's director general, said at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington.

"I cannot restart a political process without the U.S. being ready," Lamy said. That opportunity could come at a number of international meetings over the next several months.

The Obama administration's position on the Doha round of trade talks "is emerging little by little" and is positive but the process has been slow, Lamy said. if (There is much goodwill among negotiators in Geneva for the new U.S. administration but patience is not infinite, he said.

The talks, officially known as the Doha Development Agenda, were launched more than seven years ago in the capital of Qatar with the goal of helping poor countries prosper through trade.
Many developing countries, who make up of the majority of the WTO's 153 members, are anxious for the talks to conclude.

They stand to benefit if rich countries make long-awaited farm subsidy cuts and open their manufacturing and agricultural markets to more imports from developing nations, Lamy said.
U.S. farm, manufacturing and services groups strongly object to a set of proposed texts for concluding the round put forward in December. They have urged the Obama administration to refuse to restart talks on the basis of those texts.

U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk said on Thursday the United States remains committed to a successful end of the round but needs a better idea of what it will "get" in exchange for what it gives up. Kirk said the United States would soon set out new ideas for moving the talks forward.

LAMY TO MEET KIRK
Lamy, in Washington for the spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, is expected to meet Kirk.

Lamy argued that U.S. business already would benefit more from the round than it publicly admits.

If the United States wants developing countries to clarify what new market openings they will make, it would help for Washington to identify which goods it will exclude from a pledge rich countries made in 2005 not to impose duties or quota on imports from the poorest countries, Lamy said.

Developing countries fear the United States will use its insistence on excluding 3 percent of products from the duty-free, quota-free pledge to maintain barriers in areas of greatest interest to them, such as textiles and sugar.

Sounding a warning against protectionism, Lamy said he has hung a picture in his office of the two U.S. lawmakers who authored the 1930 Smoot-Hawley tariff act often blamed for deepening and prolonging the Great Depression by triggering tit-for-tat retaliation around the globe.
But that trauma led to the rules-based world trading system that has provided "more than 60 years of economic stability," Lamy said.

(Editing by John O'Callaghan)

2009-04-14T08:31:00.002-05:00

BIS Issues New Audit Module: Export Auditing
GRVR Attorneys

You may or may not have heard of the Export Management System (EMS) Guidelines from the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS). The EMS Guidelines give exporters templates to follow when designing and setting up export compliance programs. The problem is that the EMS Guidelines have not been updated in many years. That is probably why the BIS never promoted the guidelines as much as other programs and why the BIS recently pulled the EMS Guidelines from its website as it works to update them.

The BIS has updated one small, but important tool, of the EMS Guidelines: the export audit module. It is wise for exporters to use the audit module as a starting point. However, the audit module, like everything else in the EMS Guidelines, has a pro-government slant, a bias that exporters must take into account. The new audit module, plus a great deal more, will be covered in an upcoming webinar on Wednesday, April 15, 2009. Avoiding and Handling Export Violations webinar is $99 per access line. To register, go to: www.exportimportlaw.com/courseregistration.php

----------------------------------
Thanks to: GRVR Attorneys Gonzalez, Rolon, Valdespino, & Rodriguez, LLCDallas · Washington, DC · San Antonio · Mexico City · Sao Paulo, Brazil · Paris, FranceGRVR has for two decades delivered excellent legal representation to our clients. With offices in six cities, four countries, and three continents, we can fill your legal needs regardless of your location, (214) 720-7720 info@exportimportlaw.com www.exportimportlaw.com

2009-03-24T14:10:00.002-05:00

Trucking Headlines: NAFTA trade rose 4.1% in 2008
By eTrucker Staff

Surface transportation trade between the United States and its North American Free Trade Agreement partners, Canada and Mexico, was 4.1 percent higher in 2008 than in 2007, reaching $830 billion, according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics of the U.S. Department of Transportation. The 4.1 percent rate of growth was the smallest year-to-year growth rate since 2003.

BTS, a part of the Research and Innovative Technology Administration, reported that surface transportation trade with Canada and Mexico grew 8.6 percent during the first six months of 2008 compared to the same period in 2007. It declined 0.3 percent in the final six months and 9.4 percent in the October-to-December period compared to 2007. Total North American surface transportation imports rose 2.7 percent in 2008 from 2007, and exports rose by 5.9 percent during the same period.

In 2008, 86 percent of U.S. merchandise trade by value with Canada and Mexico moved on land. Total North American surface transportation trade value in 2008 was up 47.5 percent compared to 2003, and up 83.7 percent compared to 1998.

U.S.-Canada surface transportation trade totaled $537 billion in 2008, up 5.1 percent compared to 2007. The value of imports carried by truck was 6.0 percent lower in 2008 than 2007, while the value of exports carried by truck was 2.4 percent higher. Michigan led all states in surface trade with Canada in 2008 with $67.0 billion.

U.S.-Mexico surface transportation trade totaled $293 billion in 2008, up 2.3 percent compared to 2007. The value of imports carried by truck was 2.1 percent lower in 2008 than 2007, while the value of exports carried by truck was 7.8 percent higher. Texas led all states in surface trade with Mexico in 2008 with $94.1 billion.The TransBorder Freight Dataset is a special extract of the official U.S. foreign trade statistics. The data are obtained by BTS from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Foreign Trade Division.

2009-03-16T09:44:00.000-05:00

Great Lakes season could be delayed

March 3, 2009 March 3, 2009 – 4:52 pm--> Breakbulk News

Great Lakes freighters may be looking at a late start to the 2009-10 shipping season, The Detroit News is reporting.

Shipping on Lake Superior officially begins when the the Soo Locks open March 25, but news reports indicate today that the national recession is hitting the shipping industry hard. Production drops have led to less material being moved.

Dale Hemmila, Cliffs Natural Resources district manager for public affairs, said the ore dock in Marquette’s Upper Harbor, owned by Cliffs, is ready to load ore once the season starts, but no vessels are on the shipping schedule yet.

Hemmila said less iron ore production from Cliffs does mean a lighter shipping season in the coming year. He said the company is projecting about 50 percent production in comparison to 2008, which is due to lower market demand. “It’s all market-driven, what we’ve seen over the last several months for iron and steel and all the commodities,” Hemmila said.

Shippers also told the Detroit News that they have been hurt by an undersized and aging fleet of U.S. Coast Guard ice-breaking vessels.

Matthew Anderson, vessel traffic watchstander in Sault Ste. Marie at the locks for the Coast Guard, said that some shippers are starting late, but they’ve said it’s more due to a poor economy than ice.

2009-03-12T09:37:00.003-05:00

Idle boxship capacity tops 1.1m teu

Janet Porter - Wednesday 18 February 2009 -- World Trade News

CONTAINER shipping faces at least another four years of misery, and probably more, as supply continues to massively out-strip demand. New figures from AXS-Alphaliner show that the number of unemployed boxships has soared over the past couple of weeks as lines continue to cancel services.

By the beginning of this week, an estimated 392 ships with combined total capacity of 1.1m teu were idle, according to AXS-Alphaliner. This represents a huge jump from 303 ships of 800,000 teu out of work at the start of the month, and figures from Lloyd’s MIU last week putting the amount of idle boxship capacity at almost 830,000 teu.

At 1.1m teu, the number of slots withdrawn from service equates to 8.8% of the total cellular fleet, way above the previous peak of 5% touched two decades ago when US Lines went bankrupt and its ships seized, and the 3.2% recorded at the height of the 2002 market slump.

The latest data includes 19 units with nominal capacity in excess of 7,500 teu.

With so much tonnage now either at anchor or in lay-up, AXS-Alphaliner estimates that demand would have to grow at an average of 15% over the next three years to restore equilibrium by early 2013.

That scenario seems totally unrealistic, with a slightly more probable growth figure of 10% pushing supply and demand balance back to 2014.

But the main container trades are actually seeing a drop in overall volumes at the moment, with little on the horizon to suggest any turnround in the foreseeable future.

Asian export ports are reporting a huge decline in outbound traffic as retail spending in the US and Europe remains in the doldrums, while recent statistics from the European Liner Affairs Association showed a steep decline in container line liftings towards the end of last year when the full impact of the credit squeeze hit economies around the world.

AXS-Alphaliner notes that its projections are based on the current fleet and orderbook, and an assumption that 160,000 teu per year will be scrapped, and do not allow for any possible newbuilding cancellations.

Maersk Broker is provisionally forecasting that at least 120,000 teu will be broken up this year, followed by 70,000 teu in 2010, but notes that the final figures for demolition activity are likely to be higher. The first month of 2009 saw just over 40,000 teu sold to breakers.

On the supply side, around 1.8m teu is scheduled for delivery between now and the end of the year, adding 14.6% to the fleet in 2009, followed by another 12.1% in 2010.

Contracting activity remains at a complete standstill, while the shipyards are keeping tightlipped about whether they have agreed to delay deliveries.

Negotiations continue, but most industry sources do not think any firm agreements have yet been reached, with the South Korean yards determined to make clients stick to the terms of their contracts despite enormous pressure from owners and their bankers to reschedule production programmes.

As banks try to find any loophole they can to extract themselves from credit agreements, some owners are now resorting to legal action to force the finance houses to keep to their contractual commitments.

2009-03-10T09:05:00.000-05:00

HOMELAND SECURITY DEPARTMENT

World Trade News : Napolitano updates Congress on DHS' IT programs By Ben Bain Gov't Computer News Mar 02, 2009

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano told House lawmakers last week that the Homeland Security Department would not meet a deadline of 2012 that requires DHS to scan all cargo bound for U.S. seaports with non-intrusive imaging and radiation detection equipment before the cargo leaves for the United States. Napolitano also told a House panel that DHS would focus on improving intelligence sharing with state and local authorities.

The 100 percent scanning requirement has raised logistical, technological and diplomatic concerns from shippers, carriers, port and terminal operators, and foreign governments. The requirement was part of a 2007 law that allows the homeland security secretary to extend that deadline.

Napolitano also said she planned to make intelligence-sharing with state and local authorities a priority and wanted to focus on the more than 50 state and local intelligence fusion centers around the country.

The Bush administration designated the fusion centers as a central node for the federal government’s efforts for sharing terrorism-related information with state and local officials and Congress has designated DHS as the lead federal agency for that effort. The department is in the process of upgrading its platform for sharing sensitive but unclassified information with state and local officials.

“The fusion of information between the federal, state and local levels is what makes the intelligence gathering process critically valuable to preventing threats from materializing,” she testified. “Information sharing is also what makes response efforts effective.”

Napolitano also discussed a series of directives she has ordered to review DHS’ efforts in areas such as border security, risk management, information sharing with state and local authorities and cybersecurity, saying it was critical to involve the private sector in cybersecurity and she had instructed DHS officials to be sure the department was reaching out to private-sector groups.

Other information technology-related programs she touched on included the SBInet border security program, the Transportation Worker Identification Credential program and Real ID.

2009-02-23T14:53:00.001-06:00

Steel industry contemplates stimulus

February 19, 2009 – 3:34 pm-->By Janet Nodar Breakbulk News

While speakers at the 20th annual Tampa Steel Conference differ on their estimates of just how much the federal stimulus package will affect the steel industry, they agree that it is intended to “light a spark” rather than effect a rescue.

Mario Longhi, president and CEO of Gerdau Ameristeel, estimated that $70 billion of the $800 billion stimulus package will be relevant to the steel industry, including about $29 billion for transportation infrastructure, about $13.5 billion for building and repairing federal buildings and public infrastructure, about $18 billion for water-related projects and about $10 billion for rail and mass transit.

But he said this falls far short of the annual $225 billion that the National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commission says would be necessary for each of the next 50 years to ensure that U.S. infrastructure in these categories keeps up with estimated capacity and maintenance needs.

The steel industry must grapple with the same challenges or opportunities facing the nation as a whole, Longhi said, including supporting global trade rules and restoring financial stability, which no stimulus package can do alone and which cannot happen until credit markets ease and bad assets are identified and made transparent.

Murat Askin, general manager of SteelOrbis Americas, said that these are “the worst possible times” in the steel markets. Few if any analysts predicted either the price explosion or the price crash of 2008, he said. Gloomy signs include the contracting U.S. economy, Europe’s highly leveraged banking system and what appear to be growing problems in the Middle East, including high steel inventories and cancellation of planned projects.

By Askin’s count, the stimulus package will mean about $85.7 billion in infrastructure spending that will result in $2 billion to $3.85 billion in steel purchases over perhaps two years, enough to increase U.S. production only 1.68 to 3.17 percent. However, the stimulus bill also encourages business investment in plants and equipment and includes tax cuts that may encourage spending, provisions for energy-efficient school modifications and other projects that may spur steel production.

Lewis Leibowitz, a partner with the law firm of Hogan & Hartson, said the stimulus bill’s goal is to find a way to use public spending to “light a spark” and trigger private investment. The U.S. is on the cusp of major changes, he said, as the government struggles to right the banking, housing and automotive sectors. “What we do should create jobs throughout the economy, not just in one sector,” he said.

Leibowitz pointed out that steel exports grew 20.8 percent last year to 13.5 million tons. CAFTA and NAFTA countries accounted for almost 10 million of those tons. “CAFTA is one of the fastest-growing markets for U.S. export steel.”

Panama, Colombia and Korea are also potential growth markets for U.S. steel exports, although protectionist policies designed to shelter the U.S. steel industry from imports will hurt this potential.

Despite the global downturn, Dusseldorf-based ThyssenKrupp is proceeding with multibillion-dollar investments in a greenfield Brazilian slab mill and a greenfield carbon and stainless mill in Calvert, Ala.

At full capacity, ThyssenKrupp expects to import some 4 million tons of slab through Alabama from the Brazil mill annually, said Bob Holt, vice president of sales and marketing for ThyssenKrupp Steel USA.

The Alabama mill will produce 4 million tons of carbon steel annually and 1 million tons of stainless steel at full capacity, Holt said. Carbon will be in production in 2010, while the stainless side has been deferred for 1 ½ years because of the recession. The Alabama mill will produce finished coils aimed for the southeastern U.S. and Mexico markets, he said. Approximately 39 percent of that output will be geared for the automotive industry, including German automakers located in those key regions.

2009-02-20T08:50:00.003-06:00

Obama unlikely to repeal 100% box scanning law
Justin Stares, Brussels - Friday 9 January 2009

THERE is little chance of a repeal of US 100% box scanning legislation under president Barack Obama, the World Customs Organisation heard today.

The newly elected Democrat president is not expected to work as hard to oppose the unpopular law as the administration of Republican president George Bush, diplomats heard in Brussels.

The anti-terrorism measure, due to come into effect in 2012, would require all US-bound containers to be scanned prior to ship departure. It has triggered protests from trading partners, in particular the European Union, who say the US is exporting its security concerns at the expense of shippers across the globe.

Mr Obama’s precise position on the law is still unknown since he is not reported to have made reference to it during his election campaign. But WCO executives, who have been lobbying US lawmakers, say the incoming president is unlikely to fight an initiative backed by a Democrat-controlled Congress.

“As for a repeal, we will not see that,” WCO director Michael Schmit told customs ambassadors from around the world at Friday’s New Year’s gathering. The best that could be hoped for was a delay in implementation “beyond 2012”, he said.

“[President] Bush fought against the law,” Mr Schmitz said. But while the US administration had been effectively lobbied, Congress had on the other hand “heard very little”, he said.

This message was reinforced by the newly elected WCO secretary general Kunio Mikurija. “Congress is key,” he said. “Security should not be used as a new barrier [to trade]. We have to convince the US Congress to review the legislation on 100% scanning.”

The WCO, which is pushing for the blanket scanning plan to be replaced by a risk-based system, said it would wait for US appointments to be confirmed, such as that of Secretary for Homeland Security, before resuming its lobbying campaign. Congressional committees, particularly the trade committee, are being targeted as potential allies. The ways and means committee, which has already asked for a postponement to the scanning law, is also expected to lend support.

Within the US there is opposition to trade security legislation on cost grounds. A separate anti-terror measure aimed at the supply chain, known as the “10+2” law, comes into effect later this month and is expected to cost $20bn to implement, the Brussels gathering heard. Shippers will from January 26 have to inform US Customs and Border Protection of new consignment details, such as the container stuffing location and the identity of the stuffer. Financial penalties will apply for non-compliance.

Experts say 100% scanning would be even more costly. Pilot projects at a variety of ports have shown it is technically feasible but would cost up to $100 per box.

Moreover, many in the supply chain industry believe that if implemented it would do little to improve US security.

At the same time, there are hopes some ports would be exempt. “I think this law is more likely to happen under Obama than before,” said the Israeli ambassador to the WCO. “But ports in Europe will probably be alright.”

The European Sea Ports Organisation said it believed “high volume” scanning, not 100% scanning, would be the most likely outcome.

2009-02-20T08:23:00.002-06:00

FMCSA issues rule to improve intermodal equipment safety

The new regulations make intermodal equipment providers subject to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations (FMCSRs) for the first time, and establish shared safety responsibility among intermodal equipment providers, motor carriers, and drivers.

The Trucker News Services12/17/2008

WASHINGTON — New rules issued today will significantly strengthen safety requirements for intermodal container chassis, the special trailers that hold cargo containers when they are transferred from ship or rail to truck for final delivery, announced John H. Hill, administrator of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), and published on the Federal Register.

“We want to ensure that every piece of equipment traveling on our highways is operating safely,” said Hill. “These new rules will bring new safety and enforcement focus on the chassis and equipment used to haul goods on our nation’s roads every day.”

The new regulations make intermodal equipment providers subject to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations (FMCSRs) for the first time, and establish shared safety responsibility among intermodal equipment providers, motor carriers, and drivers.

Beginning in December 2009, intermodal equipment providers must have in effect regular and systematic inspection, repair, and maintenance programs for intermodal chassis; they will also need to track defects reported and repairs made. By December 2010, each intermodal provider is required to identify its equipment with a USDOT number. FMCSA’s final rule also outlines inspection requirements for motor carriers and drivers operating intermodal equipment.

Intermodal equipment providers will be subject to on-site reviews to ensure compliance with the new rules. Penalties for violating these rules range from civil fines to a prohibition on providing or operating intermodal equipment found to pose an imminent hazard.

The final rule on this Intermodal Chassis is available for review here.

Barb Kampbell of The Trucker staff can be reached for comment at barkkampbell@thetrucker.com.

2009-01-06T08:00:00.000-06:00

MEXICO TO CUT TARIFFS ON INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTS
December 23, 2008 from Shippers Digest

Mexico will cut tariffs on capital goods and other industrial imports to lower costs for Mexican manufacturers who have been hurt by the recession in the United States, Finance Minister Agustin Carstens announced. The cuts are aimed in particular at the maquiladora factories that assemble goods near the border, using components imported from the U.S., and then re-export higher-value-added products back to the United States. The government plans to cut tariffs on up to 5,000 different classes of goods between 2009 and 2012. "These measures are timely, taking into account the difficult economic context we currently face," Carstens said. The United States buys 80 percent of the country's exports, so slumping demand for Mexican exports have taken a heavy toll on Mexico’s economy. Mexico's industrial sector has not recorded any growth since May and productivity growth has not grown in 2008. By lowering the cost of key imported components, the measure could raise the productivity and competitiveness of Mexican manufacturers. The Mexican government projects that GDP growth in the country will fall to 2 percent in 2008 and drop even further to 1.8 percent in 2009. Some private-sector economists are predicting that the country could face a sustained recession

2008-12-02T07:59:00.000-06:00

Negotiating Next Year’s Trucking Contracts - Setting the Stage for LTL Pricing, Service, & Capacity
Thursday, Dec. 4, 2008 1:30 PM EDT

Only a couple days left to register - SIGN UP TODAY!

Falling volume, reduced capacity and changing operating networks have created one of the most dynamic pricing environments in recent years for shippers and carriers alike. Heading into 2009, carriers are focused closely on increasing efficiency, maximizing yield in an economy where demand is low and stakes are high. Consolidation, growing bankruptcies and failures of high-profile operators suggest the economic peril afflicting the carrier ranks and that means the stakes have never been higher for shippers.

How do manufacturers, distributors, retailers and other shippers ensure their goods get to market with the least possible risk and the greatest possible return on the transportation investment? How can shippers set the needed safeguards against the volatility in energy costs and the uncertainty in services that made 2008 such a difficult year? More importantly, how can logistics managers and transportation buyers take the lessons of the past year to the negotiating table as they prepare for trucking contracts in 2009 that will protect their companies’ interests and set a foundation for economic recovery.

A live questions and answer session will follow the presentations.

Speakers include:
Moderator: Paul Page, Editor, Traffic World
Gary Girotti, Vice President, Transportation Practice, Chainalytics
Gail Rutkowski, President, Wabash Worldwide Logistics and Chairman of the Executive Committee, NASSTRAC

Who Should Listen:
Logistics Managers
Intermodal Marketers
Transportation Planners
Purchasers
Distributors3PLs

Live participation is $99 and allows access to one phone line for an unlimited number of listeners. A live question and answer session will follow the presentations.
View Event Fees
View Event Summary
View Event Agenda
Register for Teleconference

2008-11-24T12:58:00.000-06:00

Unclaimed Cargo Clogs Indian Ports
Indian Times and World Trade Magazine

AHMEDABAD: The meltdown in the West has started to clog Indian ports. Container Freight Stations (CFS) at two of Gujarat's biggest ports, Kandla and Mundra, are spilling over with unwanted goods. With the world having gone upside down in the last six weeks, importers are shying away from claiming their cargo and many exporters are busy re-negotiating deals with overseas clients. As against an average of 300 uncleared containers at any point in time, there are over 2000 containers lying unclaimed in the 16 CFS in and around both the ports, since the clogging started one month back.

Conjestion at the Inland Container Depot (ICD) in Ahmedabad has increased by 70% in the past couple of weeks alone. There are around 1800 containers lying unclaimed here.

"We have around 1900 containers unclaimed, mostly of scrap. Importers dealing in scrap have not come to collect their cargo because of the crash in prices. Also, the rupee depreciation has resulted in increased landed cost of cargo," said a Kandla Port Trust (KPT) official. Prices of scrap in local markets have crashed by almost half -- from Rs 33 per kg to Rs 18 per kg.

The scene is slightly better with exporters. "Some consignments of pharma and chemical companies too are lying as these firms are trying to re-negotiate with their foreign clients," said an Ahmedabad-based clearing and forwarding agent. Industry sources say an average of 4500 containers are exported from one ICD every month. Jyotindra Kothari, president of Ahmedabad Customs Agents Association, says "unclaimed containers are shooting up." Market sources said that decision of the central government to impose 5% import duty on steel could ease the piling up of scrap imports.

2008-11-21T11:17:00.000-06:00

VWP Travelers Need Electronic Authorization
News from Export News -- U. S. Department of Commerce

AS OF JANUARY 12, VWP TRAVELERS NEED ELECTRONIC AUTHORIZATION
Have plans to host an international visitor next year? Beginning January 12, 2009, all
Visa Waiver Program (VWP) travelers will be required to have an electronic travel authorization
to board a carrier and enter the US. The Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA) is a new requirement implemented by the 9/11 Act to determine the eligibility of VWP visitors to travel to the U.S. The program affects all 27 VWP countries. Travelers must log on to the secure, web-based ESTA system and provide basic biographical and travel information. Each application is then checked against law enforcement databases, including the terrorist
watch-list, lost and stolen passport records, and visa revocation/ refusal files, to determine if the traveler poses any security risk. Applications must be submitted at least 72 hours prior to travel. For details, see www.cbp.gov/xp/cgov/travel/id_visa/esta/.

2008-11-11T09:01:00.000-06:00

Despite storms and economy, Gulf ro-ro still rolling
November 10, 2008 By Paul Rosynsky Break Bulk News

Given the economic crisis in the U.S. and a devastating hurricane that ripped through

Texas earlier this year, it would be easy to believe that most shipping industries along the Gulf Coast are struggling.

Consumers aren’t buying as much as they once were, and Hurricane Ike damaged a key port that shippers depend on to ship roll-on, roll-off goods to and from the Gulf Coast.

But representatives from companies that are focused on the ro-ro sector of the shipping industry said their business continues to grow despite the gloom and doom being felt throughout the U.S.

Infrastructure building booms in Latin America, the Middle East and Asia coupled with a quick recovery from Hurricane Ike at a key ro-ro port in Texas have many ro-ro carriers cautiously optimistic that they might escape the downslide.

“The ro-ro business, over the last five to six years, has grown,” said John Felitto, executive vice president and deputy head of region Americas for Wallenius Wilhelmsen Logistics. “And our customers still see growth.

“The trade between the United States and Latin America remains strong,” Felitto added.

That optimistic view has Wallenius Wilhelmsen looking to add a third vessel to its direct service between the Port of Galveston and Latin America. The company is also looking for a possible expansion of its direct service between the port and the Middle East, Felitto said.

Currently, Wallenius Wilhelmsen has two vessels on its Galveston-to-Latin America service making two calls a month at the port. Typically, southbound vessels call at Galveston; Veracruz, Mexico; Manzanillo, Panama; Cartagena, Colombia; Puerto Cabello, Venezuela; and Rio Grande, and Santos, Brazil.

The company focuses on high and heavy cargo such as manufacturing equipment and construction vehicles, but recently added cars as a cargo when it replaced its older vessels with pure car-truck vessels.

WWL also boosted its trade with the Middle East from Galveston, placing two vessels on the route in the middle of the year with plans to possibly add a third vessel next year, Felitto said.

Cargo in the Middle East trade is similar to the Latin American trade, Felitto said, with construction and manufacturing equipment filling vessels.

Sailings eastbound call at Galveston, Jacksonville, Savannah, Baltimore, Jeddah, Jebel Ali, Dammam and Kuwait.

In addition, WWL has 21 vessels currently being built that will be added to the global fleet over the next four years.

Along with Hoegh Autoliners and “K” Line, WWL has made Galveston its ro-ro hub on the Gulf Coast and was pleasantly surprised when the port was able to service vessels just eight days after Hurricane Ike devastated the region on Sept. 13.

“We expected a much larger disruption but we didn’t see it,” Felitto said. “The speed at which they recovered, as well as the personal commitment (of port personnel), was amazing.”

Cathi Lee, a senior import coordinator for Hoegh Autoliners, agreed. “Texas should be very proud of the people who work there,” she said.

Lee said Hoegh Autoliners thought it would have to redirect a vessel bound to Galveston right after the storm, but the port was able to service the vessel at its scheduled call.

“We still called, which I was shocked about,” Lee said.

Hoegh Autoliners began a new service into Galveston two years ago with direct service from Korea and Japan through the Panama Canal. The vessels usually call at Galveston once a month and occasionally twice a month, Lee said.

Lee said the route is focused on imports to the U.S. but exports the occasional project cargo load.

Like WWL, Hoegh’s ro-ro cargo is dependent on heavy machinery and manufacturing equipment, Lee said.

“The service has been absolutely steady. If we can get more ships going we would certainly have the cargo for it,” she said.

Steve Cernak, executive director for the Port of Galveston, said a decision several years ago to focus on ro-ro cargo is now paying dividends.

The port has seen yearly increases in the amount of ro-ro cargo it receives for nearly a decade and, despite the storm, it will probably see an increase this year as well, he said.

In 2007, the Port of Galveston handled 243,431 tons of ro-ro cargo. As of August 2008, the port has handled 212,067 tons, a pace that could see it handling more than 318,000 tons by the end of the year.

“It has become one of our major opportunities,” Cernak said. “It was an opportunity for Galveston. Containers were supplanting ro-ro in other ports, so we went after the ro-ro.”

The focus on ro-ro also helped the port reopen more quickly than expected since cranes and warehouses are usually not needed for such shipments.

Cernak said a little bit of luck and pre-storm planning helped the port see a quick recovery from Hurricane Ike.

The luck came because some of the port’s critical infrastructure needed to handle ro-ro was spared by Ike; the planning came as the port board of trustees pre-authorized Cernak to spend roughly $55 million in repair contracts.

So far, Cernak said the port has spent about $10 million for emergency repairs. He predicted all $55 million will be used before the port has finished restoring itself.

In addition, he said, this money should be reimbursed by insurance.

Overall, estimates for total hurricane damage at the port have ranged as high as $500 million, including damage to the berm around the port’s dredge materials area on Pelican Island and possible washouts and below-waterline damage in some sections of the port.

However, “we’re probably at 60 to 70 percent operational right now,” Cernak said by cell phone. “It was just a matter of doing it. There were certain areas of the port that escaped damage and that is where we serviced the vessels.”

While the port’s main administration building saw significant damage, Cernak said most bulkheads remained intact, allowing the port to begin servicing vessels within a week of the storm.

“The critical operations, we were spared damage at those facilities. I guess you can say we were lucky,” he said. “But, for ro-ro, it is really just uplands and the water just passed over it.”

Officials at the Port of Gulfport in Mississippi can only wish that their complete recovery from Hurricane Katrina could have been as smooth. The port is still wrangling with many challenges. However, more than three years after Katrina, the port is operating its ro-ro facilities at 100 percent, said representatives of Crowley Maritime Corp.

Crowley makes three vessel calls a month at Gulfport, filling its ro-ro vessels with containers, road construction equipment and manufacturing supplies and machinery. The vessels work on Crowley’s North American to Latin American trade route.

From Gulfport vessels call Santo Tomas, Guatemala; and Puerto Cortes, Honduras. Crowley also offers overland service from the two Central American ports to El Salvador and Nicaragua.

Charlie Dominguez, Crowley’s vice president of sales for Latin America, said a booming textile manufacturing industry in Central America and basic infrastructure improvements have helped keep the service at capacity in 2008.

Crowley has also benefited from large construction projects in Panama, including the widening of the Panama Canal and construction of an oil refinery.

“I do not see the impacts of the global catastrophe of economics in our business yet,” Dominguez said. “But it is too early to make that call.”

Dominguez said he fears the global financial crisis could slow the pace of Central America’s infrastructure improvements.

However, Crowley’s trade routes servicing Gulfport also rely on perishable foods which are shipped in refer containers on trailers. Dominguez said he doubts food goods will see a decline.

“A lot of the things we move are food. Our feeling is that consumers will not stop eating,” he said. “I also still see a continued investment in energy production.”

As for Crowley’s Gulf Coast hub, Dominguez said the company could not be happier with Gulfport, which has struggled to recover from Katrina. “The port is fully functional,” although, he said, some of the improvements have occurred more slowly than expected. “We just got back this year to three sailings a week.”

While the Gulf region’s larger ports such as Houston and Tampa still handle ro-ro cargoes, those industry executives interviewed said smaller ports will soon have a monopoly on the trade.

Once the Panama Canal is widened and containerized cargo begins to flood the Gulf Coast ports, executives predicted smaller ports such as Galveston will see increased demand for ro-ro cargo.

“For the larger port authorities, it is easier to make decisions towards container operations,” Felitto said. “It is more profitable.”

Yet, Felitto said, there are profits available if a port focuses on a niche trade such as ro-ro.

“Like everything else, we found ports and port authorities that are ready and willing to accommodate ro-ro,” he said.

Cernak said he foresees Galveston receiving more business in the future but said the port will give first right of refusal to its current customers who want to expand before it brings in a new shipping line.

“We still have land available — but if your existing customers want to grow you look at them first,” he said.

2008-10-22T09:10:00.000-05:00

Shipping project cargo by rail is expensive
October 13, 2008 – 11:03 am--> Journal of Commerce Break Bulk

There are three primary growth areas in BNSF Railway’s project cargo business, said Dave Garin, the railroad’s group vice president of industrial products. At the top of the list is equipment related to wind energy.

“We have considerable initiatives in blades, towers and other equipment, and they’re getting bigger and bigger,” Garin said.

As the national gross domestic product tripled capital investment over the past 30 years, investment in public water resources infrastructure decreased by 70 percent. The Army Corps of Engineers has a current backlog of more than 500 projects with a cost of about $38 billion. At current funding levels, it would take 25 years to complete the active projects.

The lack of funding for maintenance dredging has reached crisis proportions. The Harbor Maintenance Tax was created in 1986 specifically to fund dredging projects, but Congress must appropriate the funds annually. More than $1.4 billion was collected and put into the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund in fiscal 2007, yet only $751 million was allocated to the Corps of Engineers for maintenance dredging.

“Without dredging, many port facilities and navigation channels would be rendered unsafe and non-navigable to users in less than a year,” the American Association of Port Authorities says.
The project cargo industry has largely been spared from negative impact of the nation’s aging inland waterways infrastructure, said Dennis Devlin, director of global projects and energy for BDP Project Logistics. Most project cargo moves inland by truck, and while ports continue to devote more resources to container operations, there are more marine terminals handling project cargo now than there were 10 years ago. The Gulf Coast ports of Houston, New Orleans, Beaumont, Freeport, Galveston and Port Arthur are adding breakbulk capacity or have the ability to do so, and there are many other options on both coasts.

Coordinating container and project shipments can be challenging. Vast amounts of ancillary equipment are needed to support projects, and much of it is containerized, including pipes, valves, pumps and instruments, Devlin said. BDP uses freight process management software from Houston-base HAL Inc. that is specifically designed to track all project-related cargo shipments door-to-door.

Although the nation’s marine ports have kept up with the demands of the breakbulk and heavy-lift industry, when the economy eventually improves, there will be an even greater demand for project cargo that could strain port capacity, said Frank Fogarty, senior vice president of sales and marketing for general stevedoring at Ports America.

Without a secure, ongoing source of funding for maintenance dredging and infrastructure upgrades, some of those ports could be at risk.

“If we don’t improve our infrastructure over time, we will put some ports out of business,” Fogarty said. “Shippers will be forced into less attractive or more expensive ports, and more cargo will have to go over land, further deteriorating our national infrastructure.”

Piping is the second leading growth area as the global boom in pipeline and drilling projects continues. Transmission and drilling pipes are getting longer and heavier, requiring temporary distribution sites across the rail network.�

The third growth category is refinery equipment such as reactors and specialized vessels. Project cargo falls under BNSF’s industrial products freight business, which also includes aircraft parts, military equipment and agricultural and industrial machinery. The industrial products business accounted for 24 percent of BNSF freight revenue in 2007.

Clearance is the biggest challenge in moving project cargo by rail. Finding the right combination of equipment and routes for rail and truck movements of oversize equipment is so difficult that some component manufacturers are designing and fabricating equipment with bridge and sidings clearance restrictions in mind. In some cases, manufacturers and project developers have invested their own funds to modify bridge clearances and other impediments along routes.
“They are making investments of a few hundred thousand dollars, but the equipment costs millions,” Garin said.

Shipping project cargo by rail is an expensive undertaking. Cargo of specified weights and dimensions must travel on specialized trains at slower speeds and often on longer routes. Union Pacific Railroad applies special train charges of $120 per rail mile to any excessive dimensional shipment, with a minimum charge of 200 miles, or $24,000, in addition to regular freight charges. Heavy-duty flatcar, detention, demurrage and other changes also may apply.
Under common-carrier obligations, railroads must accept project cargo, but all of the hurdles and requirements, including car availability, make it difficult for shippers, said Grant Wattman, director of logistics for global engineering and construction firm CH2M Hill and president of the Exporters Competitive Maritime Council, a coalition of project cargo stakeholders.

The already formidable challenge of moving oversize cargo over the highways is further complicated “with the trend of Class 1 railways refusing to accept oversize and overweight cargoes, which will force additional freight to the national highway system,” according to an ECMC report.

The trend is understandable given the disruptions associated with moving project cargo by rail compared with the smooth, profitable flow of containerized cargo. “If I was in their shoes,” Wattman said, “I would do same thing.”

– David Biederman

2008-10-21T07:11:00.000-05:00

Both of our Houston warehouse facilities have been experiencing this increase also, especially with regards to material bound for energy projects.

Some Gulf ports bolstered by steel
October 20, 2008 – 11:49 am-->Journal of Commerce - Breakbulk

Despite a general drop in U.S. steel imports this summer, the Texas ports of Houston, Brownsville, and Beaumont will post increased year-to-year volumes thanks largely to a strong demand for steel used in energy projects in the U.S. and general building projects in Mexico.
But other Gulf ports were down — and some down sharply. The Port of New Orleans was hit hard with a halving of steel imports year-to-year through July 2008. Tampa dropped by nearly two-thirds year-to-year through the fiscal year ending in June.

“August was down more than we anticipated,” said David Phelps, president of the American Institute for International Steel. “But the truth is that the United States needs at least 30 million tons of steel imports a year and we expect to exceed that in 2008, so we’re talking about not a great year for imports but not a bad year either.”

However, AIIS forecasts increased imports in only three of 12 steel categories — structurals; oil- and gas-related pipe and tube; and “all other” pipe and tube — over the next three to five months. Other categories, including hot- and cold-rolled steel, slab and others, are expected to hold steady at best or decrease further.

Year-to-date figures for the country through August were down 10.8 percent, dropping to 21.2 million tons in 2008 from 23.8 million tons in 2007. From July to August this year, steel imports dropped 19.4 percent, or to 2.35 million tons from 2.91 million tons, according to the AIIS. August 2008 imports were down 11.4 percent compared to August 2007.

James M. Baldwin Jr., a former executive with steel carrier Forest Lines, said the current import situation is a function of the volatile global economy rather than anything ports are or aren’t doing. “The Port of New Orleans is really going to be singing the blues now, but it’s the market, not the port,” he said. “I believe we’re going to see an upswing in the fourth quarter, but it’s not going to pay for a real good dinner on a Saturday night.”

Indeed, New Orleans’ steel import tonnage figures have cratered year-to-year. AIIS figures show the port handled 1.8 million tons of imports for the 12 months ending July 2007, opposed to only 872,000 tons through July 2008. “That tells me that the New Orleans region is not seeing much demand for energy-related steel imports,” Phelps said. “Houston, on the other hand, is having a very good year.”

Robert Landry, director of marketing for the Port of New Orleans, said, “The weak dollar is just a real issue for us. “The other issue we are watching is the purchase of domestic mills by foreign concerns. We feel they may step up domestic U.S. production in order to avoid the increased transportation costs of importing steel.”

Despite those trends, Landry said, the port could show a strong fourth quarter. And, he said, “I’m willing to bet that September is one of our strongest months on steel in two years. We’ve had a lot more cargo than anticipated, and I’m very curious to see why that is happening.”
Port of Houston Authority figures show Houston imports up to 3.44 million tons from January through August 2008 from about 3.16 million tons January through August 2007 — a 9 percent increase, and just slightly behind the 2006 import totals for the same months. Nearly 300,000 tons of steel year-to-date were exported from Houston through August 2008, versus about 208,000 year-to-date through August 2007.

Brownsville also is having a very good year, said Antonio “Tony” Rodriguez, the port’s director of cargo services, because the port serves as a major gateway for steel bound for Mexican mills and building projects.

“We expect to be up over 1 million tons year-to-year by the end of the year,” Rodriguez said. “The Mexican economy is doing somewhat better than the American economy right now and there are a lot of big building projects near Mexico City.”

Brownsville saw 2 million tons of steel and other metal move into its port from January through August 2007 and is above that total year-to-date now, Rodriguez said. Exact year-to-year comparisons were not available, but port statistics show that the port is exceeding 2007 in the amount of iron and steel coils shipped as well as iron and steel slabs.

Energy-related steel imports have more than doubled at Beaumont, said John R. Roby, the port’s director of customer service. For the fiscal year ending in August, Beaumont counted 354,525 tons of imported steel, versus 169,798 for the same period last year. “The biggest driver has been pipe to be used in energy projects, particularly LNG projects,” Roby said. “We have a couple of LNG terminals and pipe-coating facility at the port where pipe is coated and then transported.”

At Mobile, James Lyons, director and chief executive of the Alabama State Port Authority, said steel exports are up and “that is a bright light.” Exports through the port will exceed imports this year. “Overall, imports are off a little but with around 600,000 tons in exports and imports we’re having a decent year,” he said. “We’re holding up reasonably well given the economy.”
Estimates of steel and iron imports through Mobile are 307,500 tons for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2008 versus 442,300 tons a year earlier, port statistics show. Imports were nearly 564,000 tons during the 2006 fiscal year. Exports through the port in those same time periods have boomed, from only around 8,000 tons in 2006 to 141,000 tons in 2007 to an estimated 325,000 tons this year.

Tampa, too, saw a sharp decrease in imports through the fiscal year that ended June 30. Steel imports totaled only about 112,000 tons in fiscal 2008, down from 320,000 tons a year earlier. These comparison periods include portions of calendar year 2006 when steel imports were particularly high and do not reflect July or August 2008 tonnage.

“There definitely is a downturn in imports as a result of the construction downturn,” said Wade Elliott, senior director of the marketing division for the Tampa Port Authority. “We have seen an increase in recycled scrap for export.” The authority, which has scheduled the Port of Tampa Steel Conference for Feb. 16-17, 2009, hopes to benefit from expansions by Titan Metals and One Steel Recycling.

Phelps of the AIIS said three major product areas that drive steel demand — automobiles, white goods and residential building — all are weak in the U.S. economy right now, even as oil- and energy-related projects remain white hot.

But it is not just the state of the immediate economy that is impacting imports, he said. Buying habits and inventory levels, coupled with the weakness of the American dollar, have an effect, as do the prices of domestic steel and of transportation.

Generally, steel buyers have a lot of inventory right now, Phelps said. “What we are seeing among buyers is typical when you have very high prices, such as we did in June and July,” he said. “Buyers sat down and took a deep breath, looked at their inventories and said, ‘Unless I need something immediately, I’m sitting on my hands to see where price goes.’ ”

“Steel is cyclical, and if somebody blinks on the buyer side, it could all jump again, just like that,” Phelps continued. “But any deal transacted today on imported (waterborne) steel won’t really arrive until December and January.”

In part, AIIS bases its slowing import predictions on falling imports from Canada, which have just a two- to six-week lag from order to delivery. Statistics show that imports from Canada into the U.S. fell to 463,000 tons in August from 657,000 in July — a good indicator of weakened import orders in the United States. Orders filed at the same time as the Canadian orders but from steel producers in other countries are still in transit on water routes and thus lag deliveries from Canada by three to five months.

Therefore, Phelps believes that weak imports from Canada now — on the two- to six-week delivery cycle — may foreshadow weak waterborne imports — on the three-to five-month cycle — through the rest of this year.

Imports from North American sources represented the largest declines in August, with imports from Canada falling by nearly 30 percent and from Mexico falling 27 percent (to 202,000 tons from 276,000) from July to August, Phelps said.

Based on AIIS forecasts, the trend of imports over the next three to five months will almost certainly drop in several categories, including hot-rolled and cold-rolled sheet, corrosion-resistant steel, wire rod and rebar. Only structurals and stainless steel have decent chances of remaining level.

Over the next two months, according to AIIS estimates, only oil and gas pipe and tube will be up with any degree of certainty, with other pipes and tubes showing a slight tendency to rise. Most other types of steel imports are expected to decline over both the two-month and three- to five-month periods.

John Anton, a steel industry analyst with the consulting firm Global Insight, said prices were the key reason for the rise in exports and the slippage in imports. “There’s a lot of countervailing forces. Imports should be rising because U.S. prices are higher,” he said. “Offsetting that is the fact that total volume will decline because of the weak economy, so imports are being buffeted by opposing forces.”

By Robert R. Frump, with contributions by William Armbruster.

Heavy Lift Markets

2008-10-20T15:30:00.000-05:00

This article is of particular interest to us here at Dixie Cullen, as we're seeing a greater number of Project Cargo coming through our warehouse facility and are seeing more customers choose the direction of Break Bulk.

Project, heavy-lift markets on solid ground, Drewry’s Page says
October 16, 2008 – 3:28 pm-->By Peter Leach -- Journal of Commerce - Break Bulk

NEW ORLEANS — The project and heavy-lift sectors of the breakbulk shipping industry will fare much better during the current global economic crisis than either the bulk or the container sectors.

Even if breakbulk shipments of such commodities as steel and forest products suffer during the global economic slowdown, demand for vessel space for the components of heavy industrial projects in the developing world will remain strong, Mark Page, director of liner shipping for Drewry Shipping Consultants in London, told The Journal of Commerce’s 19th Annual Breakbulk Transportation Conference here on Thursday.

“It’s a tough time for shipping, but the breakbulk and project cargo sectors should hold up well,” Page said.

Demand will hold up particularly well for the new modern multipurpose vessels that are specially designed to carry project cargo. Demand for the older, less-specialized vessels will probably slow.

What is rescuing project cargo from the global downturn is the continuing growth of markets for projects with long lead times in China, India, the Middle East and Russia, which will continue to grow in 2008 and 23009, Page said.

Although project cargo carriers have been ordering new multipurpose vessels in record numbers in the last few years, there is no danger of overcapacity in this sector. That’s because there has been no scrapping of older vessels in the last few years, and the ratio of new orders to the existing fleet is far lower than the container fleet, for example.

In 2008, the multipurpose vessel fleet is expected to increase by 4 percent, while demand for capacity is expected to increase by 5 percent, Page said.

2008-10-20T15:25:00.000-05:00

US influence in Latin America wanes
By FRANK BAJAK – Oct 11, 2008 World Trade Magazine

QUITO, Ecuador (AP) — In a matter of weeks, a Russian naval squadron will arrive in the waters off Latin America for the first time since the Cold War. It is already getting a warm welcome from some in a region where the influence of the United States is in decline.
"The U.S. Fourth Fleet can come to Latin America but a Russian fleet can't?" said Ecuador's president, Rafael Correa. "If you ask me, any country and any fleet that wants can visit us. We're a country of open doors."

The United States remains the strongest outside power in Latin America by most measures, including trade, military cooperation and the sheer size of its embassies. Yet U.S. clout in what it once considered its backyard has sunk to perhaps the lowest point in decades. As Washington turned its attention to the Middle East, Latin America swung to the left and other powers moved in.

The United States' financial crisis is not helping. Latin American countries forced by Washington to swallow painful austerity measures in the 1980s and 1990s are aghast at the U.S. failure to police its own markets.

"We did our homework — and they didn't, they who've been telling us for three decades what to do," the man who presides over Latin America's largest economy, President Luiz Inacio Lula de Silva of Brazil, complained bitterly.

Latin America's more than 550 million people now "have every reason to view the U.S. as a banana republic," says analyst Michael Shifter of the Inter-American Dialogue think tank in Washington. "U.S. lectures to Latin Americans about excess greed and lack of accountability have long rung hollow, but today they sound even more ridiculous."

From 2002 through 2007, the U.S. image eroded in all six Latin American countries polled by the Pew organization, especially in Venezuela, Argentina and Bolivia. (The others were Brazil, Peru and Mexico.) People surveyed in 18 Latin American countries rated President Bush among the least popular leaders in 2007, along with President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and just ahead of basement-bound Fidel Castro of Cuba, according to the Latinobarometro group of Chile.
In three years of presidential elections ending last year, Latin Americans chose mostly leftist leaders, and only Colombia and El Salvador elected unalloyed pro-U.S. chief executives. In May, the prestigious U.S. Council on Foreign Relations declared the era of U.S. hegemony in the Americas over. And in September, Bolivia and Venezuela both expelled their U.S. ambassadors, accusing them of meddling.

Along with the loss in political standing has come a decline in economic power. U.S. direct investment in Latin America slid from 30 percent to 20 percent of the total from 1998 to 2007, according to the U.N. Economic Commission on Latin American and the Caribbean.

The U.S. still does $560 billion in trade with Latin America, but in the meantime other countries are muscling in. China's trade with Latin America jumped from $10 billion in 2000 to $102.6 billion last year. In May, a state-owned Chinese company agreed to buy a Peruvian copper mine for $2.1 billion.

Other countries are also biting into U.S. military sales in the region. Boeing Co. is vying with finalists from France and Sweden for the sale of 36 jet fighters to Brazil. Venezuela's Chavez has committed to buying more than $4 billion in Russian arms, from Sukhoi jet fighters to Kalashnikov assault rifles. In April, Brazil and Russia agreed to jointly design top-line jet fighters and satellite-launch vehicles, and Brazil is getting technology from France to build a submarine.
"Similar deals could have been made with the United States had it been willing to share its technology," said Geraldo Cavagnari, of the University of Campinas near Sao Paulo.

Last month, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin offered to help Chavez develop nuclear power. Even Colombia, the staunchest U.S. ally in South America, isn't limiting its options. After expressing alarm about the Russian warships a week ago, its defense minister, Juan Manuel Santos, promptly headed for Russia himself to discuss "better relations in defense." Chavez says he expects to hold joint Russian-Venezuelan naval exercises as early as November.
Bolivia also is looking to deepen ties with Russia and Iran.

Although the Islamic republic's ambassador has yet to arrive in South America's poorest country, its top diplomat there announced Friday that Iran will open two low-cost public health clinics.

And while Bolivia's only announced Russian hardware purchase is five helicopters for civil defense, Moscow's ambassador told the AP — after Bolivia booted the U.S. ambassador — that Russia has every right to help Latin American nations arm themselves.
"We know of many historical cases of U.S. intervention in Latin American countries," said the diplomat, Leonid Golubev.

Thomas Shannon, U.S. assistant secretary of state for the hemisphere, wouldn't comment directly on whether the U.S. has lost influence in Latin America. But he added that there is no doubt that the U.S. still holds most of the military power in the Caribbean, and said it has no interest in reviving "Cold War rhetoric." Shannon also noted that overall U.S. aid to the region will reach $2.2 billion for 2009, to total more than $14 billion during Bush's presidency.
However, critics point out that roughly half that aid is for the military or counternarcotics, and that Washington sends more money annually to Israel alone. Even U.S. giving has been dwarfed by Chavez's checkbook diplomacy, which easily eclipses U.S. aid between outright gifts and discounted oil.

His largesse has lured several longtime U.S. friends. Honduras' president, Manuel Zelaya, said last month that after pleading with Washington and the World Bank, he accepted $300 million a year from Chavez for agricultural investment to help fight rising food prices.
"Allies, friends, did not help me when I asked," he said.

Costa Rica's president, Oscar Arias, says Venezuela offers Latin America about four or five times as much money as the United States. Costa Rica has become the 19th member of Petrocaribe, through which Chavez sells Caribbean and Central American nations cut-rate oil at very low interest.

The diminished profile of the U.S. in Latin America comes after a history of welcomed influence dating back to President Franklin Roosevelt's "Good Neighbor" policy of the 1930s, which emphasized cooperation and trade over military intervention. There have been major bailouts, such as Washington's $20 billion rescue of Mexico in the 1994 peso devaluation crisis. As former Assistant Secretary of State Otto Reich noted, "We are the assistance bureau of first choice for the region."

But the U.S. has an ugly legacy of covert intervention in countries including Chile, Nicaragua, Guatemala and Cuba. Chile's center-left president, Michele Bachelet, was jailed and tortured by a U.S.-backed military dictatorship in the 1970s. She recently recalled telling Washington's ambassador to Chile an old joke: "Some say the only reason there's never been a coup in the United States is because there's no U.S. Embassy in the United States."

The United States has also long served as chief educator to Latin America's elite. Correa is among its presidents with a U.S. graduate degree — though that didn't stop him from accusing the CIA of infiltrating his military, or refusing to renew a lease for U.S. counterdrug missions to fly out of Ecuador.

With the U.S. facing its own financial crisis, it's unlikely to be able to leverage economic influence in Latin America anytime soon. Sen. Barack Obama's senior adviser on Latin America, Dan Restrepo, acknowledges that his candidate is essentially proposing a symbolic shift in style — albeit adding a special White House envoy for the Americas.

"Barack doesn't see the United States as the savior of the Americas, but as a constructive partner," Restrepo told the AP.

Reich, an adviser to Sen. John McCain who served three Republican presidents in the region, put it even more bluntly.

"No matter who is elected in November, there is not going to be any money for Latin America," he said. "Latin Americans expecting financial resources, any kind of help from the United States, they are barking up the wrong tree."

Associated Press writers Dan Keane in Bolivia, Eduardo Gallardo in Chile and Stan Lehman in Brazil contributed to this report.

2008-10-10T09:06:00.000-05:00

** Basic Knowledge Required for Trading in Natural Resources
- Do You Understand the Flow of the Transactions and the Abbreviations? -
Mr. Tatsuya Oishi, President, Focus Business Produce, Inc.. with the Japan External Trade Organization

The TTPP Newsletter of September 2008 reported the frequent occurrence of trouble in transactions involving recycled materials, metal materials and other resources through the TTPP. To help keep you out of trouble over resource transactions and avoid unnecessary risks, I will explain the general flow of transactions in the resource trade and the main abbreviations used at that time.

International transactions in metal/mineral resources and food resources are characterized by the following three points: First, the sums involved are huge. For example, in term contracts (long term contracts continuing for a fixed period such as several months), sums of tens to hundreds of millions of yen are often seen. Second, specialized brokers or agents often act as intermediaries. Third, due to the large volumes, at the time of FOB contracts, space in specialized ships is sometimes arranged.

Resource transactions used to be generally conducted by specialized businesses.
In recent years, due to the increase in demand, easing of regulations, establishment of infrastructure and spread of the Internet, the environment is being laid enabling more traders to participate in resource transactions.

Along with the increased opportunities, beginners in the resource trade are exposed to greater risk of scams and other dangers.

Therefore, both the seller and the buyer have to reduce the risks by exercising greater caution in procedures compared with general container-based transactions. Seen from another perspective, it means that the seller determines how reliable the buyer is based on the buyer's familiarity with the complicated procedures of the resource trade. Let us introduce an example of the flow of a resource transaction.

[1] Buyer : Sends an LOI and BCL.
[2] Seller: Sends an FCO.
[3] Buyer : Signs the FCO and returns it to the Seller.
[4] Seller: Sends a draft contract to the Buyer.
[5] Buyer : Signs the draft contract and returns it to the Seller.
[6] Buyer : Requests a POP from the Seller.
[7] Buyer : Opens an SBLC or BG.
[8] Seller: Sets a PB.
[9] Seller: Loads and ships the product in accordance with the contract terms.
(Sometimes allows Buyer to witness shipment.) [10] Buyer: Sends payment in accordance with the contract terms.

The hardest things for beginners to understand are abbreviated terms such as LOI, BCL and FCO. Let us explain them next.

1) LOI = Letter of Intent This is a letter by which the Buyer expresses its intent to buy the product. It describes the name of the product, the product specifications and country of origin, quantity, term of the purchasing contract, desired price, terms of transaction (FOB, CFR, CIF, etc.), desired shipment date, method of payment and valid period of LOI.

On the other hand, the Seller's side will sometimes ask for disclosure of the Buyer's bank's name, bank account number, etc. and for its understanding of a "soft probe" so as to investigate the Buyer's ability to pay. A "soft probe"

means the procedure of contacting the Buyer's bank through the Seller's bank to briefly investigate the Buyer's ability to pay.

2) BCL=Bank Comfort Letter (Bank Capability Letter) This is a letter issued by the Buyer's bank to the Seller and certifies that the Buyer has sufficient ability to pay for the transaction in question. The BCL may be demanded by the Seller at the stage of the LOI, the time of signing the contract, etc. Several cases are possible.

3) FCO=Firm Corporate Offer (Full Corporate Offer) This is a formal offer by which the Seller proposes details of the transaction and the final price. If the Buyer accepts these terms, it signs the offer and returns it to the Seller. Next, the Seller sends a draft of the contract.
Depending on the transaction, the two parties will sometimes enter negotiations on concluding the contract directly without going through the FCO process.

4) POP=Proof of Product In the same way as the Seller thinks the Buyer's ability to pay is important, the Buyer finds it important to determine if the Seller really owns the products in question or has the right to deal in them. A document proving the ownership or right of trade of the product is called a "POP".

Specifically, this includes an export license issued by an official organization, a warehouse receipt and certification of results of inspection by an independent third party certification organization. However, it is essential to determine if the documents are genuine.

Further, as a method to ensure a more reliable progress in the process, sometimes a POF (Proof of Funds/document proving the Buyer's ability to pay) and POP are exchanged between the Seller's and the Buyer's banks.

5) BG=Bank Guarantee, SBLC=Stand By Letter of Credit, PB=Performance Bond
- A BG is, as the name implies, a bank guarantee. The bank guarantees that the Buyer will pay the debt to the Seller.

- An SBLC differs from a usual L/C (Letter of Credit) in that it is a special letter of credit with no terms requiring attachment of a bill of lading (type of clean letter of credit) and is considered a bank guarantee issued in the form of a letter of credit.

- In the event the Buyer defaults on its debt, in both a BG or SBLC, the issuing bank guarantees payment to the Seller.

- A PB is a proof of performance. It guarantees payment to the Buyer of a fixed percentage of the export price (for example, 2%) in the event of the Seller defaulting on the contract to export to the Buyer as contracted for. Due to this, if the Seller defaults on the contract, the Buyer can be compensated for the expenses required up to that point. Specifically, this is set by the
Seller for the Buyer in the form of a BG or SBLC.

There may be various other variations in the flow of transactions. Further, technical terms and other specialized terminology unique to the industry/ resource will also be used. Therefore, the most important point in resource transactions is sufficient understanding of the products. Can you completely understand the processes involved in a transaction proposed by a seller and do you really have a grasp over the potential risks behind the transaction? If you find this difficult, I recommend you should not let yourself get involved in such a transaction or you leave it to experts such as specialized trading companies.
Above, I explained part of the basic knowledge required for resource transactions. In actual transactions, be sure to check by yourself the flow of transactions and terminology unique to the individual industry and remember that only you are responsible for the transaction.

===============================================================================
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TTPP News Back Numbers
http://www3.jetro.go.jp/ttppoas/mailnews/index.html
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2008-10-07T11:30:00.000-05:00

Managing Your Customs Brokers
by Ruth Rodriguez, Attorney

If you are an importer, you probably rely heavily on customs brokers. You may not have the inclination or the resources to clear your own entries. Customs brokers can be indispensable for classification and other compliance areas. Some brokers also provide other services, including logistics and shipping. Brokers are highly trained professionals, having been vetted and licensed by US Customs and Border Protection (CBP). Using customs brokers (or other professionals, like customs attorneys) can help convince enforcement authorities that you are using reasonable care. Customs brokerage has existed as a profession for centuries, preceding the founding of our nation and proving itself essential to international commerce.

But none of this means that you give your customs broker carte blanche. A customs broker is your agent. When the customs broker makes a mistake, it is your mistake. When the customs broker violates the law, the law presumes that the customs broker is acting at your company's behest.

Hiring a customs broker does not insulate you from liability. It only extends the avenues for enforcement officials to tag your company for errors and violations. If errors and violations are uncovered, the importer-broker relationship may turn adversarial, with one party blaming the other. Some customs brokers feel that they owe a greater allegiance to CBP than to the importer. In the end, if you chose the wrong broker, you (not your broker) can lose out on the duty-free savings from programs that you did not know about, you are likely to pay hundreds of thousands, or even millions of dollars, in fines and penalties, and you are likely to pay similar amounts in administrative costs and fees to resolve the violations.

Thus, a hands-off approach is calamitous. You must remain actively involved with everything your customs broker does on your behalf. The best way to do this is to limit the number of brokers you hire, restrict the terms and duration of the powers of attorney you grant, create Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for your brokers, and supervise and audit broker performance.

Limit the Number of Customs Brokers. Use a customs broker as liberally as you need to, but limit the number of brokerage firms you hire. Having too many brokers is a sign that you do not control your brokers.If you do not know how many brokers you are using or who they are, you may be in even bigger trouble. There are ways, with the help of an attorney, to find out who is making entries on your company's behalf.Once you know who your customs brokers are, trim them to a manageable number. Find out what each broker is doing on your company's behalf. You may discover that you are paying more than one broker to do the same task. You may also find a disparity in the fees you pay different brokerage firms. You may find out that there are individuals and departments within your company that hire customs brokers when they have no authority to do so. All this information will enable you to negotiate for better terms with the brokers you do retain, and to create company policies limiting who can hire brokers.With all this information in hand, start revoking the powers of attorney of customs brokers that you do not need.

Sign Better Powers of Attorney. Revisit the contracts and powers of attorney for those brokers you intend to retain. It is tempting to sign the "industry standard" power of attorney or contract, but the terms and conditions may not serve your company well. There may be exculpatory clauses, limitations of damages, and other language that is suspect. Many importers sign unlimited powers of attorney. That is a big mistake. This is your power of attorney. You are the principal. You decide what the customs broker can and cannot do when representing you. Also consider limiting the duration of your powers of attorney. Avoiding "standard" forms will benefit both parties. It will force you into a dialogue with your broker, and the expectations of both parties will be revealed with clarity and reduced to writing.

Create Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for your customs brokers to follow. Make sure that your brokers are contractually obligated to follow your SOPs. How much, if at all, you involve your broker in developing your SOPs is a matter of choice and comfort level.

Audit your customs brokers for compliance with your SOPs. No one in your company should ever say anything like, "We don't worry about that (e.g., classification). That's what we have a broker for." There are many ways to audit your customs brokers, and your review does not have to be incredibly intrusive or prolonged. But in the end, be brutally honest in grading your customs brokers. Your customs brokers should certainly not be reluctant to cooperate, having agreed to your SOPs.

Get a good lawyer Hire a seasoned lawyer to help your company foster a mutually beneficial relationship with your customs brokers, someone who is responsible primarily for protecting your company's interests.

---------------------GRVR Attorneys has represented both customs brokers and importers for two decades. Several of our attorneys have also passed the customs broker exam and have worked in logistics and transportation.

2008-10-06T10:29:00.000-05:00

Understanding and Complying with the New Foreign Trade Regulation (FTR) Requirements:

Starting October 1, 2008, the Census Bureau will require mandatory filing of export information through the Automated Export System (AES) or through AESDirect for all shipments where a paper Shipper’s Export Declaration is required. Penalties may be imposed for the delayed filing, failure to file, false filing of export information, and/or using the AES to further any illegal activity. Also, all AES filers will face new filing deadlines by mode of transportation for reporting export information. For more information, visit www.census.gov/foreign-trade/aes.

It is imperative you understand these new requirements to avoid possible penalties and seizure of your commodities. To this end, the U.S. Census Bureau’s Foreign Trade Division and the U.S. Commercial Service are offering a series of webinars designed to educate U.S. exporters on these new regulations. Webinar topics will be divided into five modules:

Data Elements covers the mandatory, conditional and optional fields in AES.
Filing Requirements covers who, what, when, and how to file export transactions.
Parties to an Export Transaction & Their Responsibilities covers each party’s responsibility as it relates to a standard export and routed export transactions.
AES Overview provides highlights of the AES.
Informed & Enforced Compliance covers topics such as penalties, mitigation, voluntary self-disclosure and corrections. Register at www.export.gov/logistics/aes/doc_eg_aes.asp

2008-10-03T07:46:00.000-05:00

AN UNTAPPED MARKET
September 8, 2008 J. JOSEPH GRANDMAISON Shipping Digest Online

Most Americans reading this column probably aren’t doing business in Africa. That is a shame because export opportunities in Africa are real and growing, and U.S. companies ought to be entering these markets now as African countries are developing their infrastructure and industries.

Over the years that I have served as a board member of the Export-Import Bank of the United States and have spoken with government and business leaders from all over Africa, it has become clear to me that too few U.S. companies are marketing in Africa. African contracts are often awarded to competitors from other countries at least in part because no U.S. companies have bid on them. That is unfortunate because Americans have a reputation for providing superior quality and for upholding their contracts. African project sponsors and other buyers are favorably disposed to U.S. companies – when there are some.

Here are the facts: The African continent is growing economically because of political stability and economic reforms in many countries. In 2006, the economy of all of sub-Saharan Africa increased 5.5 percent. In fact, 23 African countries expanded at a rate faster than 5 percent, and only Zimbabwe failed to grow.

Since the inception of the African Growth and Opportunity Act, U.S. trade with sub-Saharan Africa has increased from $29 billion in 2000 to more than $71 billion last year. AGOA provides beneficiary countries in sub-Saharan Africa with liberal access to the U.S. market and also contributes to better market opportunities for U.S. companies. In 2007, U.S. exports to sub-Saharan Africa totaled $14.4 billion, which is more than double the amount in 2001. Today 40 sub-Saharan African countries are eligible for AGOA benefits. AGOA is fostering an improved business climate in Africa and expanded U.S.-African trade.

Africa’s strong economic growth is producing a rising demand for equipment and services, as well as consumer products. Some of the sectors with substantial potential include oil field development, electric power generation, transportation, health care, telecommunications, computers and software.

Ex-Im Bank, the official export-credit agency of the U.S., has a congressional mandate to assist U.S. exports to sub-Saharan Africa, and we have increased our financing for these exports. We have seen a shift in demand for our products from short-term export-credit insurance (typically used for raw materials, spare parts and consumer products) to medium-term credit and long-term project and structured finance (typically used for capital goods and services).
In fiscal 2007, Ex-Im Bank authorized $442 million in transactions to 18 sub-Saharan African countries. Much of this financing assisted Boeing’s exports to African airlines, but it also supported exports of U.S. equipment and technology to African oil field and oil-storage projects, manufacturing and fishing companies, among others.

One market serving as a model for Ex-Im Bank financing in Africa is Nigeria. With oil sector revenue and the reform of its banking sector in 2006, Nigeria’s economy is growing considerably. Development of the power and transportation sectors, including ports, roads and airports, is particularly urgent.

To help U.S. exporters in Nigeria, Ex-Im Bank established a special delegated authority facility that now includes 14 Nigerian banks. This facility is making $1 billion in financing available for Nigerian buyers of U.S. goods and services.

The Nigerian model has been emulated with Ex-Im Bank’s new special delegated authority for the African Export-Import Bank, which can now provide up to $40 million in Ex-Im Bank-backed short-term and midterm financing. This facility serves as a marketing tool to promote the purchase of U.S. goods and services virtually throughout the continent.

Earlier this year, Ex-Im Bank also opened for medium-term financing in the public and private sectors in Angola, where opportunities in the oil, gas and mining sectors are enormous. We want more U.S. exporters to take advantage of these developments.

We advise companies to focus on markets where opportunities for their sectors are greatest. The U.S. Foreign and Commercial Service, www.export.gov/africa, is an excellent resource, and its Country Commercial Guides are invaluable. We also recommend participation in the Corporate Council on Africa’s 2008 U.S.-Africa Infrastructure Conference in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 6-8, 2008, http://www.africancl.org/.

Lastly, we invite those U.S. exporters seeking financing for their African contracts to contact Ex-Im Bank, www.exim.gov/products/special/africa. We can do more for U.S. exporters in Africa. We’ll help you realize the opportunities in this vast untapped market.

J. Joseph Grandmaison is a board member of the Export-Import Bank of the United States.

2008-10-01T07:55:00.000-05:00

Wood Importers' Alert -- New Declaration Requirement
GRVR Attorneys - Oct Newsletter

The latest Farm Bill imposes new requirements on wood importers, a group that may be much larger than you might think. Importers of plants and plant products are now required to certify that their products do not come from illegally harvested trees or plants. Specifically, importers must file a declaration regarding the species and country of origin. The world's forests are being cut down illegally to supply the US domestic market. (See, for example, Brazil's government has been named as the worst illegal logger of Amazon forests by one of its own departments). US wood and furniture manufacturers, environmental groups, and labor unions inserted into the Farm Bill an amendment to the Lacey Act, our country's oldest wildlife protection statute.

Customs and Border Protection and the Agriculture Department's Animal Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) will enforce the new law. Importers must start filing declarations by December 15, 2008, unless federal regulators and industry representatives can negotiate an extension or a tiered phase-in, which appears likely. Flooring, furniture, paperboard and plywood are clearly covered, but the new law may cover importers of many other products containing wood or plant material. The law does not specify how importers should certify their products, but it is clear that violators face huge penalties and the danger of shipment seizure.

2008-09-30T11:39:00.000-05:00

MANUFACTURED GOODS EXPORTS UP
September 22, 2008 Shipping Digest Online

U.S. exports of manufactured goods in July were up 22 percent over July 2007, bringing the total for the first seven months of the year to $669 billion, a 16 percent increase over the same period last year, according to Frank Vargo, vice president for international economic affairs at the National Association of Manufacturers.

Manufactured imports rose 8 percent in July and are up 7 percent for the year. The $933 billion import tab resulted in a $264 billion deficit, 15 percent lower than in the first seven months of 2007.

The surplus with U.S. partners in the North American Free Trade Agreement and other free-trade partners totaled $8.1 billion in the first seven months of the year, for an annual rate of $14 billion, Vargo said.

“Many people have been led to believe we have a terrible trade position with our FTA partners and are unaware that our manufactured goods trade with them is in surplus,” Vargo said. “And that’s a shame, because if they knew, they would join the NAM in asking Congress to pass the remaining FTAs so we could have our exports increase even more. The lesson is clear – free-trade agreements are the solution, not the problem.”

2008-09-29T12:27:00.000-05:00

Costa Rica seeks more time – again – on CAFTA
By Gillian Gillers Tico Times Staff ggillers@ticotimes.net

For the second time, Costa Rica is seeking to extend its deadline for entering the Central American Free-Trade Agreement with the United States (CAFTA).

Vice President Laura Chinchilla met with Peter Brennan, the chargé d'affaires at the U.S. Embassy, on Friday to request more time to enter the pact, according to the daily La Nación.
Chinchilla said the country would miss its Oct. 1 deadline after the Supreme Court on Thursday struck down an intellectual property law designed to put Costa Rica in compliance with CAFTA.
“We are convinced – and this is the message that we want to give Costa Ricans – that we will still be able to enter CAFTA,” Chinchilla said at an Thursday night. She then turned to a soccer metaphor: “In the last few minutes of the game, we have been dealt a yellow card. We don't think it's a red card.”

The Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court (Sala IV) found that lawmakers had failed to consult indigenous groups when debating the bill, as required under a 1989 United Nations convention. Lawmakers must now fix their error and pass the bill again.

The proposal was the last of 13 bills required for Costa Rica to enter CAFTA, which was ratified in a national referendum last October. After lawmakers missed a Feb. 29 deadline for passing the bills, Costa Rica's trading partners granted the country a seven-month extension.
Chinchilla said the administration will decide how much more time to request once the Sala IV releases its full ruling. The other CAFTA signers – the United States, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic – have all entered the treaty.

Latin America on Target to set more records

2008-09-09T08:53:00.000-05:00

We, at Dixie Cullen, have seen a large increase in the volumne of equipment and material coming through our warehouse facility for export packing bound for Latin America.

TRADE WITH LATIN AMERICA ON TARGET TO SET MORE RECORDS September 1, 2008 LETICIA LOZANO from Shipping Digest

Rapid economic growth spurs demands for U.S. importsSoaring energy and food prices, the worst housing slump since the Great Depression, a credit crisis, job cuts: It all may be enough to tip the U.S. into recession this year, if we aren’t already there. But the “flu” in the world’s biggest economy is causing little more than the sniffles in Latin America, where growth remains strong and a weak dollar is driving trade between the U.S. and South America.

With Latin American banks having little or no exposure to the U.S. credit crunch, and with the region’s strong domestic currencies, a China-driven commodities boom, high foreign investment levels and fiscal discipline, trade is robust — despite soaring oil prices, rising freight costs and Latin America’s congested ports.

“We haven’t seen impact from the U.S. slowdown,” said Alvaro Espinosa, general manager at the Port of San Antonio, Chile, which sends 16 percent of its exports to the U.S. and where U.S. imports represent 25 percent of all imports. “In the first five months of this year, we’ve seen a 15 percent increase in container shipments, so at least at the first reading, there is no talk of a U.S. recession here.”

Such optimism may be dampened in the coming months if the relentless increases in oil prices continue and as U.S. manufacturing activity falls. Consumer spending is weakening now that the fiscal stimulus checks have mostly been spent.

Overall U.S.-South American trade is nevertheless growing at historic levels, with Chile and Peru benefiting from free-trade deals. U.S. exports to Central and South America reached a record $107.5 billion in 2007, and imports hit a record $134.8 billion, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Those records will probably be smashed this year. U.S. exports in the first six months of the year totaled $66.8 billion, while imports totaled $80 billion.

Despite the slowing U.S. economy and world oil prices, exports to Central and South America in June were a record $12.9 billion, compared with $8.7 billion in June 2007. Imports totaled $15.7 billion, compared with $10.7 billion in June of last year.

Brazil is enjoying a boom time as its middle class swells and the country enjoys an unprecedented stretch of economic growth coupled with low inflation and a strong currency. Foreign investment doubled to $35 billion last year, the economy grew 5.4 percent, and trade with the U.S. totaled $50 billion. The economy is set to grow 4.5 percent this year.

“The stronger buying power of Latin American currencies, particularly the Brazilian real, and the abundance of petro-dollars in Venezuela have generated a significant increase in export liftings compared to a year ago,” said Frank Larkin, senior vice president at Hamburg Sud North America, the U.S. subsidiary of the German shipping line Hamburg Sud.

Soaring economic growth in Argentina, Peru and Venezuela is also spurring demand for U.S. imports in those countries.

Despite the bitter anti-U.S. rhetoric of President Hugo Chavez, Venezuela is increasingly dependent on U.S. imports and, as the government nationalizes large chunks of the economy, its exports beyond oil are few.

“The downside of that shift is the need to continually reposition empty boxes,” Larkin said. “On the export side, the Venezuelan container market, for example, is virtually all inbound, and those boxes, once emptied, must then be repositioned to match up with export opportunities in other markets.”

Changes to customs laws in Brazil and Colombia this year also have made life difficult for shippers. Both countries now require cargo heading for their ports to be documented 48 hours prior to the vessel’s first Brazilian port call. Failure to do so can mean cargo confiscation or denial of berthing.

“These new mandates are very rigid and unfortunately conflict with the realities of modern just-in-time shipping,” Larkin said. “If manifest information is submitted to (Brazil’s) Siscomex Carga and then changes or additions need to be made, fines of $3,000 per incident can be imposed and cargo delivery can be further delayed.”

Such measures have increased costs for shippers having to rehandle and work export documents, Larkin said.

Supercharging Your Chinese Supply Chain

2008-08-28T09:51:00.000-05:00

Managing an efficient supply chain is critical for global success. Whether you are sourcing products from China or managing export operations, Supercharging Your Chinese Supply Chain focuses on the Chinese side of your import/export transaction and will deliver the tools and information you need to successfully manage your supply chain.

Presented by Shawn Levsen, UPS International Account Executive, this session will cover the key players in the Chinese supply chain including how to choose the right service provider, a review of Chinese export regulations and customs procedures and a detailed overview of the flow of goods and documents. This session will help you improve efficiency, lower risk and increase the profitability of your global supply chain.

Join us on Thursday, September 18th at the Plaza Club San Antonio. Register now!
Next Session - Global Marketing: Managing Your Global Distributor
Developing a win-win relationship with your global distributor is critical to successfully expanding into new markets and growing your company's international sales. Managing Your Global Distributor covers all the important factors that you need to consider while selecting and working with an international sales and marketing partner.

Presented by Jacob Nammar, International Sales Executive, this seminar will guide you through the process of choosing the right distributor, creating a solid contract, complying with legal requirements, and establishing the different methods of monitoring your agreement. This session will help you successfully manage your global distributor in a way that will lower risk, improve relationships and increase sales for your company.

Join us on Thursday, October 16th at the Plaza Club San Antonio. Register Now!

Schedule of Events
09.18.08 Supercharging Your Chinese Supply Chain
10.16.08 Global Marketing: Managing Your Global Distributor
11.13.08 Using Letters of Credit in China
01.22.09 Doing Business in Vietnam
02.12.09 Discovering Business Opportunities in Colombia
03.12.09 International Trade & Protecting Your Intellectual Property
04.16.09 Importing Food Products into the U.S.
06.11.09 Doing Business with Korea

For more information, please visit our website at www.texastrade.org
Become a Sponsor!

Registration
www.texastrade.org11:30 am to 1:00 pmIndividual Rate: $25
Seminar Location
Plaza Club San Antonio 100 W Houston St. #2100 San Antonio, TX 78205

For More Information
E-mail: barbara.mooney@utsa.edu Phone: 210.458.2470Web: www.texastrade.org

Deficit Shrinks as Exports Surge

2008-08-27T10:28:00.001-05:00

DEFICIT SHRINKS AS EXPORTS SURGE
August 25, 2008 Shippers Digest

The U.S. trade deficit dropped 4.1 percent in June despite soaring prices for imported oil. Goods exports increased 5.1 percent to $118.6 billion, compared to $114.3 billion in May and $99.1 billion in June 2007.

Exports of manufactured goods were 17 percent higher than in June 2007, according to the National Association of Manufacturers.

“Manufactured goods exports are growing more than twice as fast as imports of manufactured goods, and as a result the manufactured goods trade deficit is falling,” said Frank Vargo, NAM’s vice president for international economic affairs. “June’s manufactured goods trade deficit in fact was 9 percent lower than it was a year ago.”

Exports of automobiles, parts and engines grew by $576 million, while imports grew by $60 million. U.S. exports of food, feeds and beverages rose by $853 million, while U.S. imports of the same products fell by $144 million. Exports of capital goods excluding autos rose by $1.2 billion in June, while imports fell $1.4 billion.

Goods imports were up 2 percent because of the increase in oil prices, which averaged $117.3 billion. Non-oil imports fell.

Including services, the deficit shrank to $56.8 billion, according to the Commerce Department. However, when adjusted for inflation, including oil prices, the real trade deficit fell by 10.3 percent in June to $39.1 billion, the lowest level since December 2001.The trade deficit with OPEC countries grew to a record $18.1 billion, while the politically sensitive U.S. trade gap with China rose to $21.4 billion, up from $21 billion in May, but not up much from the $21.2 billion deficit in June 2007.

The total U.S. deficit with all countries in the first half of the year was $394 billion, up from $376.2 billion in the first six months of 2007.

Close Relations with EU Boost Export Opportunities

2008-08-22T12:06:00.000-05:00

TRANS-ATLANTIC TIES: CLOSE RELATIONS WITH EU BOOST EXPORT OPPORTUNITIES August 11, 2008 WILLIAM ARMBRUSTER Shipping Digest

Despite growing economic integration, U.S. companies still face some entry barriers Europe is often an afterthought in many trade circles. It shouldn’t be. The U.S. relationship with the European Union is a partnership between equals, with enormous amounts of trade and investment that bring substantial economic benefits to people on both sides of the Atlantic.
For example, U.S. merchandise trade last year with the 27 members of the European Union totaled $600 billion, a 47 percent increase over the $409 billion in two-way trans-Atlantic trade in 2003.

Much of that trade is between parent companies and subsidiaries on the other side of the pond. That’s largely because of the huge levels of foreign direct investment — an even bigger indicator of economic integration than trade statistics alone would indicate. As of the end of 2006, U.S. companies had invested about $1.1 trillion in the European Union’s 27 member states, while EU companies had invested about the same amount in the United States. U.S. companies employ about 7 million people in the EU, while European companies employ about the same number in the U.S.

For example, Siemens, the German conglomerate, employs about 70,000 people in the U.S., according to Kathryn Hauser, executive director of the Trans-Atlantic Business Dialogue.
“The similarities (between the U.S. and EU) are obvious. The U.S. and Europe are very large markets, have people with very similar values, high quality standards and regulations on things that matter to consumers, such as food safety,” Hauser said.

The TABD is a private-sector group that seeks to establish a trans-Atlantic market with the freest possible exchange of goods, capital and people between the U.S. and EU.
A barrier-free market would make it easier for all companies, especially small and medium-sized enterprises that don’t have a lot of resources, she said. The cost of complying with some current regulations is “really, really high” for them, she added.

Hauser cited mutual recognition of security programs and accounting standards, and a task force aimed at easing restrictions on business travel, as examples of cooperative steps that will benefit companies on both sides of the Atlantic.

The EU’s creation of a single market means that U.S. exporters no longer need to tailor a product to meet regulations and standards in each country. Rather, said Gary Litman of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, “it’s the EU market. That reduces the cost of entry for American companies tremendously.”

Litman, the chamber’s vice president for Europe and Eurasia, said the adoption of the euro by 15 EU members — the U.K. is the most notable exception — has helped U.S. companies. The euro is “simple, uniform and transparent,” he said.

Calculating costs and pricing was far more challenging before the introduction of the euro.
Without the euro, the dollar would be overpriced relative to the individual currencies of some eurozone countries, such as the Spanish real, he said.

The strong euro — the flip side of the weak dollar — has boosted U.S. exports by making them more price-competitive in the EU. Last year, they totaled $247 billion up from $214 billion in 2006, a 15 percent increase. The pace has been slightly less robust thus far this year, perhaps reflecting the spread of the U.S. economic slowdown across the Atlantic. Still, U.S. exports in the first five months of 2008 were up 14 percent, totaling $117.3 billion, compared with $103 billion in the same period last year.

Paul Dyck, the Commerce Department’s deputy assistant secretary for Europe, said he expects U.S. exports to Europe to continue to grow at double-digit rates next year.

The strong euro has taken its toll on European exports in other markets, such as Asia and Latin America, because European goods are too expensive compared to U.S. goods.

Meanwhile, the weakening of the dollar has led to a surge in acquisitions of U.S. businesses by bargain-hungry foreign companies. In a blockbuster deal last month, InBev, a Belgian brewery whose brands include Bass and Beck’s, bought Anheuser Busch, maker of Budweiser, the icon of the U.S. beer industry.

Besides acquiring U.S. companies, European companies, including IKEA, BMW and Michelin, have been busy building U.S. factories or expanding their existing manufacturing operations to take advantage of lower costs in the U.S., as well as to be closer to their customers and to cut transportation costs.

“I think there has been an amazing number of advances in terms of economic integration,” said Kimberly McLaughlin, director of EU affairs for the U.S. Council for International Business.
The size and wealth of the EU member states, which have a combined population of about 500 million, make Europe an attractive market for U.S. entrepreneurs, Litman said. “If you have a new idea, a new product, energy and passion, you are no longer confined to the U.S. market. You can count on a very sophisticated, very deep European market with high expectations of value, quality, product safety, and with very substantial purchasing power,” Litman said.

U.S. exporters will also benefit from the EU’s new customs code, a step that will simplify various procedures and introduce a paperless environment. Some of the code’s provisions took effect on June 24, while others will be phased in over the next several years. The provision regarding customs charges, for example, will not take effect until Jan. 1, 2011.

Overall, the best opportunities for U.S. companies in the EU are at the upper end of the technology scale, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce. “U.S. goods are well regarded, and demand is driven more by quality and performance than by price,” the department said in its country guide for the EU.

The guide warns, however, that the single market is not a uniform one. “The market of the European Union is a differentiated one, with each member state market having supply, distribution, demand, cultural and legal characteristics that merit individual attention. Specific tactics for market entry or expansion should be considered for each country,” the guide observed.

Moreover, implementation of many European Commission directives is up to individual countries.

The EU country guide contains a wealth of information and can be found on the Web site for the U.S. Commercial Service, Commerce’s export arm. The Web site, www.export.gov, also has country guides for each member state, detailing the best prospects, the investment climate and other economic, political and commercial information for the country or countries of interest.
The EU is currently facing an economic slowdown, although it may not be as severe as in the United States. Growth in the eurozone was probably flat in the second quarter, but is expected to rise to 1 percent in the second half of the year, said Michael Andrews, chief economist for PIERS, a sister company of Shipping Digest.

Andrews attributes the slowdown to the spillover effects of the U.S. housing and credit crises, in addition to surging oil and food prices. Moreover, the European Central Bank has been raising interest rates in an effort to curb inflation — a move that also has a depressing effect on economic growth.

The slowdown in the U.S. may limit the growth in EU exports to the U.S. Surprisingly, however, in dollar terms, EU exports to the U.S. grew in 2007 and in the first five months of this year. Exports to the U.S. last year totaled $354 billion, up from $330 billion in 2006. And in the period from January through May 2008, imports totaled $154 billion, compared with $141.8 billion in the same months last year. As a result, the U.S. deficit with the EU fell by a relatively small amount, dropping from $38.6 billion to $36.8 billion. The deficit last year was $107 billion.

Drayage Drivers - endangered species

2008-08-20T08:35:00.000-05:00

Over the past few months, many of our customers have seen delays in getting their cargo out of the port facilities after the ship finally arrives. So we thought that this article might make for some interesting reading.

endangered species

Economic and regulatory pressures are making it tough for port drayage drivers to earn a living. If they turn in their keys, who will haul the containers? By Toby GooleyFrom the June 2008 issue

Drayage drivers are the unsung heroes of our nation's import-dependent economy. They wait in long lines to pick up and drop off the millions of ocean containers that pass through U.S. ports each year. They spend long days shuttling containers between ports, intermodal terminals, and shippers' premises.

Most are owner-operators who work as independent contractors for small, locally owned trucking companies. Typically, they bear the cost of operating and maintaining their tractors, and they have no health insurance or pensions. Many are immigrants whose legal status is not always clear. And if anecdotal evidence is correct, more and more of them are turning in their keys, parking their trucks, and walking away from what has become a pretty shaky way to make a living.

These hardworking drivers are becoming an endangered species. If enough of them decide to get out of the business, something else will become endangered: ready availability of service at prices exporters and importers are willing to pay.

Hard timesLike everyone else who buys or sells transportation services these days, drayage drivers are trying to cope with unfavorable economic conditions and regulatory changes. One of their biggest worries is the cost of diesel fuel. An early 2007 survey of drayage drivers serving the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach found that fuel costs ate up more than one-third of independent owner-operators' gross incomes. At the time of the survey, diesel was $2.87 a gallon; with prices now exceeding $4 a gallon in Southern California, that percentage unquestionably is far higher now.

Because drivers typically are paid by the trip, port congestion can be an enormous drain on income. A 2007 study of drivers at the Port of Seattle found that a local one-way haul paid $40 to $50 on average, and round trips were about $80. To make any sort of living at those rates, drivers need to make at least a couple of round trips daily. But just a few years ago, drivers in LA/Long Beach were lucky to make two turns in a day.

The situation has improved considerably, thanks in part to the PierPass appointment system, and night and weekend hours at container terminals. "Productivity has improved by approximately 50 percent since PierPass and extended gate hours went into effect," said Rick Wen, vice president, business development for Hong Kong-based container line OOCL, in a recent address at the Coalition of New England Companies for Trade (CONECT) Annual Northeast Trade and Transportation Conference. At that event, which was held in Newport, R.I., in March, he predicted that port congestion was likely to ameliorate even further as the U.S. economy slows down and import volumes decline. But long wait times could return if LA/Long Beach dockworkers and management continue to disagree over proposed changes in labor scheduling, or if they fail to sign the next labor contract by the July 1 deadline.

Port congestion has had other consequences for companies that hire drayage drivers. When container traffic shifts away from congested ports and spikes in other parts of the country—as it has at East and Gulf Coast ports and inland intermodal parks in the past few years—there may not be enough drivers ready to go to work when shippers and carriers need them.

In rural Chambersburg, Pa., for example, carriers are desperate for drayage drivers at the intermodal rail terminal that opened there last year, said Ken Kellaway, executive vice president of RoadLink USA, North America's largest intermodal company. Speaking on a panel with Wen, Kellaway said that carriers are trying to get people off their farm tractors and into trucks. Shifts in port usage patterns have made planning and scheduling difficult for drayage companies, he added. "Where do we need more trucks and drivers? The East Coast or the West Coast? We don't really know because [demand] keeps changing."

Regulatory burdensFederal, state, and local regulations are adding to drayage drivers' frustrations. The Transportation Security Administration's Transportation Worker Identification Credential (TWIC) program, now being rolled out at ports nationwide, is almost certain to push thousands of drivers off the docks. TWIC is designed to limit port access by requiring anyone who works at or conducts business at a port to have a biometric identification card that includes detailed information about the holder. Only U.S. citizens are eligible for the IDs, which require a background check and fingerprinting.

So far, said Kellaway, the TWIC acceptance rate for drayage drivers is 96.7 percent. That sounds good—until you learn that an estimated 20 percent won't even apply because they know they won't pass. He and many other industry observers predict that upwards of 200,000 drivers nationwide will drop out of the business for that reason alone.

The regulatory pressures just won't let up. In California, current and proposed clean air regulations are likely to burden owner-operators and small trucking companies with so much additional cost that they may not be able to afford to stay in business. The Clean Truck Program, included in the San Pedro Bay Ports Clean Air Action Plan (CAAP), requires a phased implementation of new or retrofitted low-emission tractors by Jan. 1, 2012. Few owner-operators— or small truckers, for that matter— can afford to pay or borrow $50,000-plus for a new tractor or even $15,000 to retrofit their current vehicles. Although grants and loan programs are being developed to help defray the cost of updating an estimated 16,000 vehicles, they may not be enough to bridge the gap.

The clean air plan also requires drivers who do business at Long Beach to be either employees or contractors of port-approved trucking companies, known as "Licensed Motor Carriers" (LMCs). The Port of Los Angeles will adopt an even more restrictive policy. LA will require all drivers to be employees of approved carriers that own the tractors—no contractors allowed. Port of LA officials say their approach will ensure a more stable, more economically viable workforce with compliant vehicles. But there's a potential fly in that ointment: An economic impact analysis of the Clean Truck Program found that so many owneroperators would quit if forced to give up their independence that a significant capacity shortage could result.

To someone who often doesn't make a whole lot more than minimum wage and typically has neither health insurance nor a pension, the costs and hassles involved in hauling containers simply aren't worth it. By Kellaway's estimate, the average drayage truck generates $100,000 annually, but the driver clears just $7 an hour. The 2007 Port of Seattle survey bears that out: Respondents worked 11 hours per day to earn an average annual income of $31,340 per year, after deducting truck-related expenses. A similar survey of drivers in Southern California came up with an even lower figure. (See the sidebar titled "portrait of a drayage driver.")

Struggle for survivalAlthough the pressures and problems are greatest in Southern California, similar scenarios are playing out nationwide. Is there any remedy? It's difficult for even technologically sophisticated companies with strong service networks to get premium rates, so raising drivers' per-trip rates is not an option, Kellaway said. RoadLink, which formed its network by consolidating many of the larger regional intermodal companies around the country (including Kellaway's own Boston-based company), is instead trying to help drivers reduce their costs. Those initiatives include help with vehicle financing, using RoadLink's technology to reduce empty miles, and creating a buying cooperative for fuel, tires, and parts. All together, he estimates, those initiatives cut drivers' annual costs by anywhere from $2,000 to $5,000. Whether such programs will be enough to keep drivers in their cabs for the long term is uncertain.

And it's not just the drivers who are an endangered species. The small trucking companies whose employees and independent contractors serve importers and exporters also are disappearing. Most of them, Kellaway said, are "mom and pops" that have no succession plans—"their kids don't want to take over the business."

The potential loss of drayage capacity as small truckers close up shop and independent drivers park their trucks permanently is a genuine threat to international supply chains, Kellaway argued. "Intermodal drayage companies [do business with] multibillion-dollar companies, and every single one is dependent on small local drayage companies that don't have long-term prospects for survival," he said. "We've got to figure out how to correct this ... or the current business environment could force their extinction."

portrait of a drayage driver
The drivers who shuttle ocean containers to and from ports work hard for their money, as a March 2007 report on truckers serving the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach attests. The report, prepared by CGR Management Consultants for the Gateway Cities Council of Government, includes these statistics:
The vast majority of port drayage drivers are independent owner-operators (IOOs). Some IOOs work as contractors for local trucking companies.
The average tractor operated by IOOs is a 1994 model purchased for $21,500.
The average IOO survey respondent grosses $73,900 per year. Fuel costs eat up more than one-third of that revenue—more than $25,000 on average. (Note: These figures were based on a cost of $2.87 per gallon, the price of diesel at the time the report was prepared. Diesel currently exceeds $4 per gallon.)
The average net income reported by IOOs is $29,600, a figure the researchers believe may be overstated.
IOOs worked 50.7 hours per week on average.
Port drayage drivers who are full-time employees of local trucking companies earn an average hourly rate of $16.13 and receive limited benefits.
Nearly 90 percent of the interviews with IOOs who contract with trucking firms were conducted either partially or entirely in Spanish.
To read the report, Survey of Drayage Drivers Serving the San Pedro Bay Ports, go to www.gatewaycog.org.

Another report on drayage drivers is Big Rig, Short Haul: A Study of Port Truckers in Seattle, which was based on a 2007 study conducted by the nonprofit organization Port Jobs. The report is written in a very accessible, nonacademic style. Especially interesting are the personal profiles of individual drivers and the challenges they face. The full report can be found at www.portjobs.org/bigrig_shorthaul.pdf.

2008-08-20T08:32:00.000-05:00

E. Hunter Harrison, President and Chief Executive Officer of CN, to deliver keynote address at

3rd Annual Canada Maritime Conference

NEWARK, N.J. (Aug. 18, 2008) — E. Hunter Harrison, considered one of the leading transportation visionaries of modern times, will deliver the keynote address at the 3rd Annual Canada Maritime Conference that takes place Sept. 30-Oct.1, 2008, at the Sheraton Wall Centre in Vancouver, B.C. Harrison, who became president and CEO of CN on Jan.1, 2003, will discuss his vision for the future of rail in North America during his keynote address on Oct. 1, 2008. Credited with accelerating CN's turnaround by focusing on performance and cost control, Harrison joined CN in 1998 after five years as President and Chief Executive Officer of Illinois Central Corp. and its subsidiary, Illinois Central Railroad Co. CN completed its acquisition of the IC in July 1999. During his career with IC, Harrison devised the concept of scheduled railroading service for freight shipments, maintaining a sharp focus on operational efficiency and asset utilization. By 1996, he succeeded in driving the railroad's operating ratio down by some 30 points to the low 60s – the best in the North American rail industry at the time. Named CEO of the Year in 2007 by Canada's Report on Business magazine, Harrison's watch at CN has seen the company's revenues increase by one-third, profits double and the company become the hands-down most-efficient railroad in North America. Rail companies across the continent have begun copying Harrison's "precision railroading model" by running freight trains on a schedule. The Canada Maritime Conference is produced by The Journal of Commerce Conferences and Canadian Sailings magazine, both divisions of Commonwealth Business Media. "Supply Chain Transparencies" is the theme of this year's conference, which is hosted by Port Metro Vancouver. Panels will feature industry leaders discussing issues and trends impacting Canadian trade lanes, such as port capacity, export trends, and issues with the U.S./Canadian border. To register for the 3rd Annual Canada Maritime Conference, contact JoC Conferences at (760) 294-5563 or by email at events@joc.com or go to www.joc.com/conferences/cmc. For exhibiting and sponsorship information, contact Julie Wallner at (209) 451-4870 or by email at jwallner@joc.com.

About Commonwealth Business Media Commonwealth Business Media Inc., a subsidiary of United Business Media Limited, is the leading information provider to the global trade, transportation and travel market with comprehensive proprietary data, news and analytical content. Its leading brands include The Journal of Commerce, PIERS Global Intelligence Solutions, OAG (Official Airline Guide), Air Cargo World, Traffic World, and Aviation Industry Group, plus a number of directory databases covering the international trade, railroad and trucking markets. The company also produces more than 30 conferences serving the international trade, aviation and maritime markets. For more information, visit http://www.cbizmedia.com/.

About CN CN – Canadian National Railway Company and its operating railway subsidiaries – spans Canada and mid-America, from the Atlantic and Pacific oceans to the Gulf of Mexico, serving the ports of Vancouver, Prince Rupert, B.C., Montreal, Halifax, New Orleans, and Mobile, Ala., and the key metropolitan areas of Toronto, Buffalo, Chicago, Detroit, Duluth, Minn./Superior, Wis., Green Bay, Wis., Minneapolis/St. Paul, Memphis, and Jackson, Miss., with connections to all points in North America.

Global Trade Talks Collapse

2008-08-07T15:22:00.000-05:00

Free Trade After Doha's Collapse

For U.S. trade negotiators, the breakdown of the Doha round of talks adds urgency to bilateral pacts with South Korea, Colombia, and Panama
by Peter Coy Business Week

The collapse of global trade talks on July 29 proves Voltaire's aphorism that the perfect is the enemy of the good. In pursuit of the perfect—an international trade deal agreed upon by some 150 countries with vastly different goals—negotiators wound up with nothing. The way forward is likely to be via bilateral and regional agreements. A global deal, if one can be reached, may be a package of smaller agreements between subsets of the full body.

Excessive ambition may have doomed the Doha Round of trade talks, which began in November 2001. Under the World Trade Organization (WTO), the intention was to get all nations to agree to all parts of the final deal. That proved impossible, as China and India insisted on their right to protect their fragile farming sectors.

Previous trade rounds were conducted among wealthy, industrialized countries with similar interests. As the rounds grew, countries were allowed to opt out of parts of deals. The Uruguay Round, started in 1986, reached a universal agreement, but that was partly because nations that signed the deal could call themselves founding members of the WTO. That incentive was not available for the Doha Round, says Philip I. Levy, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and an adviser to presumptive GOP Presidential nominee Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.).
U.S. CHECKLIST

What's next? U.S. trade negotiators will shift to winning congressional approval for pending bilateral free-trade deals with Colombia, Panama, and South Korea. Levy says such pacts can be "proving grounds" for a global deal by demonstrating the economic potential of various kinds of trade liberalization.

Not that bilateral deals are a piece of cake, either. Congress has refused to act on free-trade agreements sought by President George W. Bush. And while McCain is a free trader, his Democratic rival, Senator Barack Obama (D-Ill.), has been more skeptical.
Still, the U.S. can secure better terms in bilateral deals by promising access to its vast domestic market. Such small agreements aren't perfect, but they're better than nothing.

The collapse of global trade talks on July 29 proves Voltaire's aphorism that the perfect is the enemy of the good. In pursuit of the perfect—an international trade deal agreed upon by some 150 countries with vastly different goals—negotiators wound up with nothing. The way forward is likely to be via bilateral and regional agreements. A global deal, if one can be reached, may be a package of smaller agreements between subsets of the full body.

Coy is BusinessWeek's Economics editor.

More Containers are falling Overboard

2008-08-05T11:52:00.000-05:00

Over the years we have seen an increase in the number of containers that come to our facility with shifted cargo. In turn we've also seen many of our customers come to us asking that we recenter the cargo before shipment.

Having seen all this we take great care to be sure that everything leaving our warehouse facilities is loaded with weight distributed as evenly as possible then blocked and properly secured.

Many times we've been asked by a customer, can't you just stick it in the container and let it go. . . . don't bother blocking it. We stick to our guns as we want to give your cargo a fighting chance to arrive at it's final destination in good condition.

MORE CONTAINERS ARE FALLING OVERBOARD
July 28, 2008 from Shippers Digest PETER T. LEACH AND WILLIAM ARMBRUSTER

The P&O Nedlloyd Mondriaan was steaming off the coast of the Netherlands with its decks stacked high with containers from the Far East on Feb. 9, 2006, when it was hit from astern with waves driven by winds of force 8 to 9 on the Beaufort scale. As the vessel rolled with the waves, 59 loaded containers tumbled overboard.

Ten days later, as the 7,500-TEU vessel was returning to the Far East with a cargo of empty containers, it ran into another storm in the Bay of Biscay, with headwinds of the same gale force. The ship lost another 50 containers. On the same day in the same storm in about the same location, the CMA CGM Otello, a vessel of approximately the same capacity but of a different design, lost 50 boxes.

These incidents were among the first of a mounting tally of containers lost overboard during the last two years. In 2006 and 2007, there were “significant” incidents where at least 36 ships lost a total of more than 1,600 boxes overboard. The full extent of the problem is unclear because there’s no central repository for the data, and many ship lines understandably aren’t eager to publicize lost containers.

“There appears to be a trend of near-catastrophic losses of containers stowed on deck of container ships,” said James Craig, president of the American Institute of Marine Underwriters.
One reason for that trend is the practice of loading heavier containers on top of lighter boxes. That has become more common as ships get larger and carry ever more containers.
Container stacks above deck can vary in height between four to 10 or more high and it’s usually just the lower boxes that are cross-braced, leaving the top containers at the mercy of the pin locks on the four corners of the can holding it to the next, said Rick Bridges, vice president of Roanoke Trade Services, an insurance broker.

Unfortunately, shippers really can’t do much to prevent their cargo from going overboard, he said. In most cases, the carriers decide where the container is placed, he said. “Considerations such as commodity, weight, destination or transship points all are taken into account. So in short, the shipper cannot choose whether he is above or below deck,” he said.

As far as anything shippers can do to be proactive in preventing damage due to rolling and pitching of the vessel, Bridges suggests that they hire a surveyor to show them how to properly block and brace cargo.

“This goes a long way, especially if there is a claim where the suitability of packing is brought into question by the insurance company or steamship line. If the shipper can go back and prove that packing was performed as recommended by an accredited surveyor, then they stand a much better chance of getting their claim settled without issues,” he said.

Peru Builds on Trade Explosion

2008-07-22T09:25:00.000-05:00

Over the past few months, we have seen an increase in shipments going to Peru through our facility. Many of these shipments have been Farm and Construction equipment. We thought the following might be of interest.

News Americas
Peru builds on trade explosion
Source: News Americas via World Trader 18 Jul 2008

Peru is undergoing a spate of new ports building as its trade with the rest of the world mushrooms.

Most recent is Neptunia, a logistics and warehousing company that is "very advanced" in building a new port north of Callao, said a company official.

"This new Port will be ready and operational during the first quarter of 2010 and will count with specialised mineral concentrates loading berth, liquids and grains discharging berth," he added.
This is on top of DP World who has already started construction of a terminal at Peru's main port Callao, 20 km from capital Lima.

The first phase of the project will see around $210m invested in two berths comprising 660m of quay line and 22 hectares of yard, capable of handling vessels of 5,500 teu.

It will be operational in the second half of 2009. Further development will be phased in, in line with demand, with total capacity projected to reach around 1.3m teu. DP World has a thirty year build and operate concession.

Women's Global Leadership Conference in Energy & Technology

2008-07-21T08:11:00.000-05:00

One Month Left for Early Bird Discount!

13-14 November 2008

Westin Galleria Hotel Houston, Texas USA

Please save the date for the 4th Annual Women’s Global Leadership Conference in Energy & Technology, at the Westin Galleria in Houston, Texas, on 13-14 November 2008.

This event is devoted to providing an exclusive forum for women in the energy industry to discuss key business issues and to network. Guided by a distinguished advisory board, this event draws almost 1000 delegates from around the globe.

This year's conference agenda has been extended to meet attendee needs for more in-depth networking and discussion. This includes:*Additional Sessions*Optional Workshops for Hands-on Learning*Wine Tasting Networking Event

Also, companies and organizations can send their employees at a discounted rate by purchasing a Leadership Pack. Leadership Packs provide companies a thirty-five percent discount on registration as well as recognition in the conference porgram.

For more information on securing a Leadership Pack, please contact Katie Oliver at +1 713-520-4450 or events@gulfpub.com.

To register, click here.

For more information, visit http://www.wglnetwork.com/. We look forward to your response.Click here to respond

Sincerely,

Katie Oliver

Gulf Publishing Company

2 Greenway Plaza

Houston, TX 77046 USA

WHEN
13 November 2008
14 November 2008

WHERE
Westin Galleria Hotel
5060 West Alabama
Houston, TX 77076
USA

Register Now

E-Filing of Shipper Export Documentation

2008-07-18T09:55:00.000-05:00

The New E-Filing regulations seem to be foremost in everyone's thoughts this week, especially since these new regulations went into effect July 2. We received the following notification from the U. S. Commercial Service, Export Assistance Center here in Houston

Mandatory Electronic Filing For SED Shipments

The U.S. Census Bureau has issued the final rule, which requires mandatory filing of export informaton through the Automated Export System (AES) or through the AESDirect for all shipments where a Shipper's Export Declaration (SED) is required, effective July 2, 2008. There will be a 90 day implementation period, ending September 30. After that, export information must be filed electronically through the AES or AESDirect. These new regulations, published in the Federal Register on June 2, 2008 have tougher penalty provisions that affect everyone in the export process. Penalties may be imposed per violation of the Foreigh Trade Regulations (FTR) from $1,100 to $10,000 both civil and criminal. Anyone submitting paper SEDs after September 30, 2008, will be in violation and subject to penalties. for details on this important rule, see: www.census.gov/foreign-trade/aes/mandatory/index.html

Further, we received the following notification from the Journal of Commerce about an upcoming Web Training on these new regulations.

Journal of Commerce

"Live Teleconference"
New Export Rules – E-Filing of Shipper Export Declaration
Friday, July 25, 2008 ~ 1:30 PM - 2:30 PM
Eastern Time Zone

A comprehensive revision of the nation's export regulations, including mandatory electronic filing of export documents, effective July 1st, will bring an end to paper shippers export declaration, and make the Automated Export System the only legal means for filing export data. Enforcement of these new regulations will begin 60 days after.Census will phase in the regulations to give exporters time to get accustomed to the biggest change, mandatory electronic filing of export documents through the Automated Export System. Jerry Greenwell, Trade Ombudsman, Foreign Trade Division, U.S. Census Bureau, will give more insight to the Automated Export System.

Other topics to be covered:

• How will Census delegate enforcement authority to other agencies?
• Who is going to get penalized for noncompliance?
• How will the penalties be enforced?
• What will be the mitigating factors?
• Who is responsible for routed export transactions?
• What are the major changes in the new Foreign Trade Regulations from the old regulations?

Moderator:Bob Edmonson, Senior Editor, The Journal of CommerceSpeaker: Jerry Greenwell, Trade Ombudsman, Foreign Trade Division, U.S. Census Bureau

Live participation is $99 and allows access to one phone line for an unlimited number of listeners. A live question and answer session will follow the presentations.

WHEN
Friday, July 25, 2008 1:30 PM - 2:30 PM
Eastern Time Zone

FEE
View Event Fees
View Event Summary
View Event Agenda

RSVP
Thursday, July 24, 2008

Register for Event

Complying with Export Controls on International Technology Transfers

2008-07-17T09:44:00.000-05:00

Technology Transfer is not something that concerns the majority of the projects that we handle, but it is of concern for many of our customers in the products and services that they offer clients worldwide. So we thought we would take a few minutes to share information about this upcoming conference.

CONFERENCE INFORMATION
DATE: September 22 & 23
LOCATION: San Francisco, CA
VENUE: Hyatt at Fisherman's Wharf

Benchmark your compliance practices with speakers from:
• Applied Materials• Google• GE Fanuc Intelligent Platforms• General Electric• IBM• Intel• Lenovo China• Meggitt• MPC Products• SAIC• Texas Instruments• Varian Medical Systems

Register now for the lowest conference price of $1895 expiring on July 21st
At American Conference Institute's 4th National Forum on "International Technology Transfers" you will have an invaluable opportunity to share best practices with industry experts. Government speakers will include the FBI, U.S. Department of Justice and BIS. Critical topics will include:

How to register:
CALL: 888-224-2480
FAX: 877-927-1563
WEBSITE: AmericanConference.com/techtransfers
Use Priority code: 743509 when registering
· Reconciling deemed export/re-export restrictions with anti-discrimination and privacy laws
· Application of ITAR to defense and commercial technologies
· Complying with encryption requirements and preparing for new regulations
· Enforcement, prosecution and investigations of tech transfer cases: Update
· Offshore outsourcing of tech support, R & D and software development: Protecting intangibles
· Strengthening your internal technology compliance program
· When and how voluntary disclosures can mitigate your liability
· Ensuring compliance of foreign affiliates and subsidiaries
· Implementing effective IT & physical controls to manage employee and visitor access
Get critical information that is not available in print or on the web. Based on popular demand, spaces will fill up quickly. Register now by calling 1- 888-224-2480, faxing your registration to 1-877-927-1563 or registering online at http://americanconference.com/techtransfers.htm

Register now for the lowest conference price of $1895 expiring on July 21st! Please use service code 743509 when registering.

2008-07-16T14:20:00.000-05:00

Containers
Slower exports rein in Shenzhen volume growth
By Sandra Tsui in Hong Kong - Monday 14 July 2008
Source: World Trade Magazine

Shenzhen is the world's fourth busiest and China's No.2 container port.THROUGHPUT growth at south China’s Shenzhen port in the first half of this year slowed to half of last year’s pace as its major cargo source, Guangdong province, lagged the rest of the country in export growth during the period.

Industry analysts warned that the slowdown may signal a widening export crisis in the country and local media have hinted at a possible resumption of the tax rebate policy that was used by the government in the 1990s to help exporters.

The world’s fourth busiest and China’s No.2 container port handled 10.2m teu in the first six months of this year, 7.2% higher than the same period last year, according to initial figures from the Shenzhen transport bureau.

The transport bureau attributed the slower pace of growth to shrinking US export volume and a 5% fall in throughput in the eastern Yantian container terminals to 4.3m teu.

Chiwan and Shekou located in western Shenzhen and operated by the China Merchants Group, fared better. Chiwan and Shekou handled 3m teu and 2.8m teu, respectively, representing increases of 9% and 30%.

There are 13 more international services calling at Shenzhen this year so far, most of them intra-Asia services. However, more than 100 port calls has been cancelled on North America route, said the bureau.

Guangdong province, the major manufacturing base for exports in southern China, has been hit hard by weak demand from North America, a big cut in tax rebates and more stringent environmental and labour policies.

The province’s external trade volume rose just 15% in the first five months, 11 percentage points lower than the average for the whole of China. Export volume rose 15.6%, 7.3 percentage points below the national average.

Figures for the month of June show a more alarming picture. The value of China’s exports climbed 17.6% to $121.5bn in June, said China’s customs department.

This is the third time the country’s export growth rate has fallen below 20% since 2006. The first and the second times, in March 2007 and February this year, fell into the usual low-cargo period after the Chinese New Year.

Port Workers go on Strike in India.

2008-07-15T13:00:00.000-05:00

Since many of our customers routinely import or export to India we thought that this might be of general interest.

Port workers to go on strike from July 15 midnight in India
Source: World Trade Magazine

MUMBAI: Port and dock workers in 11 ports of the country will go on strike from July 16 after talks between representatives of workers' unions and Transport and Shipping Minister, Mr T R Balu in New Delhi failed on Thursday.

Today's meeting was held to evade a deadlock between the Government and the workers, whose demands included 13.5 per cent interim hike in pay effective from January 2007, increase in bonus, inclusion of 50 per cent dearness allowance (DA) in the basic pa y and filling up of vacant posts among others, a press release issued by All India Port and Dock Workers' Federation said.
Following the failure in the talks, the strike will start from July 15 midnight, the statement said adding that employees of the officers' cadre will also participate in the strike.

The entire activity in the 11 ports will come to a total halt because o f the strike, affecting loading and unloading operations, the federation said. - PTI

ISPM 15 Compliant

2008-07-15T11:37:00.000-05:00

We're very excited about the growth that we have experienced over the past couple of years and during this time we've sort of ignored our blog, which was orginially designed to be an online newsletter. However we've given considerable consideration as to where we want to head with it and we're going to follow a new path.

Since our Company newsletter is produced monthly and emailed to customers and potential customers, this format is no longer needed for that. Our customers email us thanking us for all the information that we share with them about the industry, and we just don't have enough room in our newsletter for all that is happening on the International Trade market. Some of which is great information but not needed by them for day to day operations.

For those of you wishing to receive our newsletter it can be subscribed to simply by emailing sales@dixiecullen.com

Export Packing and Containerizing - ISPM 15 Compliant

In the 11 years we have been in business we have seen the global economy change in many ways. Top of the list is that the world is no longer as large and daunting as it has been, more and more companies are doing business globally. We too are looking at the needs of our Global Customers.

Just this year alone our customers have shipped steel, machinery, construction equipment, skidded product and material and farm tractors through our warehouse facility for countries such as Peru, India, France, Venezula, China, Guatamala, Viet Nam and Taiwan.

In order to continue to provide our customers with the quality services that they need, we have applied for and received our ISPM 15 Certification. You may be asking what this means to you.

Quite simply it means to you that each piece of wood that we use in building the skids, blocking your containers, or building a crate will be stamped with our ISPM 15 Certified Stamp, every two feet. So it can easily be seen when and if your container is opened for inspection that the proper blocking and dunnage is used.

It also means that our packing and containerinzing operation is inspected monthly to assure international compliance.

Wood Packaging Materials Regulation Update 7/06

2006-07-12T11:32:00.000-05:00

Effective Immediately

On July 5, any ISPM-15 marked or unmarked wood packaging material (PM) that is found to be infested with a live wood boring pest of the families Cerambycidae (longhonred beetle), Buprestidae (woodboring beetles), Siricidae (woodwasps), Cossidae (carpenter moth), Curculionidae (weevils), Platypodidae (ambrosia beetles), Sesidae (clearwing moths) and Scolytidae (Bark beetles) will require immediate re-exportation at the importers expense.

For further details click here

Transloading Services on the Rise

2006-01-11T08:30:00.000-06:00

Dual Hoist Overhead Cranes make the Transloadinig of Pipe a Snap!

Our warehouse facility has several Heavy Lift overhead cranes that allow us to safely and effeciently remove material from your Open Top Containers.

Timing is everything for our customers and prompt handling and delivery of material is essential for them.

It is also essential for the driver delivering the container, and the driver that is sitting waiting on the material.

This particular project had the material arriving, being pulled out of the container. Then the container was pulled out , and the matieral was moved to the side permitting the tractor trailer, that would be delivering this material to the end customer, to back in safely.

Then the load is moved back over and safely set onto the trailer for securing, tarping and delivery to the customer.

Our office works closely with the supply chain of brokers and truckers coordinating the movement of the material for our customers.

Let us help you keep your material supply moving. Just give us a call at 713-747-1101 or email us at sales@dixiecullen.com for your quotation

Machines headed to India!

2005-11-22T09:02:00.000-06:00

Used Machine's bound for India

Dixie Cullen offers our clients export packing and containerizing services, specializing in used machinery and equipment.

Using Certified Heat Treated Wood, we will containerize equipment that our customers purchase.

This equipment will be loaded into the containers, spreading out the weight as necessary, blocking and securing into place so that the containerized equipment does not move or break loose during handling. We do not "just stuff" containers. Bracing is used as necessary to secure high pieces, anchoring as needed to secure movement, and covering in plactic to help protect against the elements in the open top containers.

The entire process is documented in photos, and copies of all photos are emailed to you, your broker and any other parties that you request. Contact us TODAY sales@dixiecullen.com for your personalized quotation

Additional Floor Space Added

2005-11-22T08:41:00.000-06:00

30,000 square foot addition added to our warehouse facility

The addition of approximately 30,000 square feet to our warehouse facility permits us to easily handle the expanded services, in addition to our regular services that we offer to our clients.

We have room available for your immediate storage needs, be they intransit, short term or long term requirements.

Please contact us TODAY for your personalized quotation.

sales@dixiecullen.com www.dixiecullen.com
Ph: 713-747-1101 Fax: 713-747-1422

Steel Handling Services Expanded

2005-10-27T10:05:00.000-05:00

Value Added Services NOW available

for our Steel Storage Customers

Over the years we have had the opportunity to handle the steel storage and distribution for several of our customers. In recent months we have seen an increase in the number of customers using our warehouse facility to distribute to their customers. We routinely receive material that has been discharged from the ship large quanities that we unload at our warehouse facility, inspect, inventory, place into storage and release upon customers authorization.

Along with the increase in business we also noted that material sometimes comes in damaged, rusty or with torn wrappings. To help our customers facilitate their quality control for material shipped to their end customers we have started offering "cleaning" services. When our customer directs, we can remove torn plastic, fix broken bands, rebundle, clean and oil.