Florida Shipper articles from July 2006

Florida Shipper archives from July 2006

Mexico: Gulf course.
July 3, 2006... Mexico's export industry is set to expand 7 percent this year after growing 6 percent in 2005. Exports, which comprise one-third of Mexico's gross domestic product, are especially healthy because of the resurgence in Mexico's maquiladora...

E-deals.
July 3, 2006... Closing sales by e-mail or Web trading is becoming more accepted in Mexico, and small business deals - subscriptions or re-subscriptions - may be closed using e-trades. But initial contracts and any significant business deal must be undertaken...

Speaking between the lines.
July 3, 2006... Joseph A. Muldoon III, the retired lobbyist who represents Eller & Co., the locally powerful stevedore that sued to block the DP World's acquisition of P&O, said he felt like "a skunk at a picnic" when he addressed a recent conference sponsored...

Bird flu fears stunt US poultry exports.
July 3, 2006... Romania and other only-poultry-importing nations this year have decided to ban foreign chicken meat because of the bird flu scare. In April, Russian officials ordered all poultry import licenses held by foreign shippers to be replaced with...

Transportation Secretary Mineta to step down.
July 3, 2006... Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta has submitted his resignation effective July 7, the White House announced on June 23. Mineta's resignation letter to President Bush, dated June 20, notes that after more than five years as secretary,...

US logistics costs soared in 2005.
July 3, 2006... Overall logistics costs in the U.S. jumped an unprecedented 15.2 percent in 2005, according to Rosalyn Wilson, who presented the 17th annual State of Logistics report last month to members of the Council of Supply Chain Management...

Crowley boosts reefer fleet.
July 3, 2006... The liner group of Crowley Maritime Corp. has added 457 new 40-foot, high-cube refrigerated containers and 380 power packs to its fleet. The Jacksonville, Fla.-based company said the reefers were received in early June in Jacksonville and...

Jamaica signs on for CSI.
July 3, 2006... The United States and Jamaica have agreed to install radiation-detection equipment at Jamaican ports as a first step to participation in the U.S. Customs Container Security Initiative. The equipment will screen seagoing cargo containers to...

Ecuador strives to increase exports of bananas to China.
July 3, 2006... The Ecuadorian Association of Banana Exporters is working to stimulate fruit exports to China and has asked the Ministry of Foreign Trade and the Ecuadorian presidency to commit to reaching an agreement with China, according to the industry Web...

Border passport delay likely.
July 3, 2006... Canadian sources are being quoted in Canadian papers as saying that there are growing signs the U.S. government will be forced to delay the Jan. 1, 2007, implementation of its passport requirement for air and sea passengers returning to the...

Customs' ACE snarls Mexico crossing.
July 3, 2006... A seasonal surge in shipping put a chokehold on a new electronic customs clearance system for truckers, creating severe traffic backups at an important U.S.-Mexican border crossing and headaches for Customs and Border Protection. The...

Mexico rebuffed on NAFTA corn and beans.
July 3, 2006... The U.S. government rebuffed a pre-election request by Mexico to delay the 2008 opening of the market for white corn and beans under the North American Free Trade Agreement, Mexico's agriculture minister said on June 23. Francisco Mayorga...

Ceres expands Florida foothold.
July 3, 2006... Ceres Marine Terminals Inc., one of the world's largest marine and cruise terminal operators, is challenging Florida's stevedoring and terminal operators at several ports and has won the Royal Caribbean International concession, effective June...

Ethanol plants get state support.
July 7, 2006... The Port of Tampa's proposed ethanol production facility and another similar plant planned for Port Manatee are expected to benefit from a four-year, $100 million plan that could diversify the state's fuel supply while promoting energy...

Jacksonville accepts DOT grant.
July 7, 2006... The Florida Department of Transportation and the Jacksonville Port Authority have agreed on a $5.4 million deal for the Jacksonville Port Authority to build an entryway into the port's Dames Point terminal. The DOT also agreed to provide...

Treky optimism: Trade and transportation.
July 10, 2006... BYLINE: Rick Eyerdam On June 12, Ray Shepherd, staff director and chief counsel of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs' Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, told his committee: "The technology isn't where we want it...

Relative rage.
July 10, 2006... The war against terrorism had just turned into the occupation of Iraq when my father learned that cuts in his veterans' benefits required him to increase his co-payments for the drugs that kept his one good eye from dimming. He was already over...

US funds Vietnam customs' electronic manifest pilot.
July 10, 2006... The U.S. Trade and Development Agency will provide a $601,893 grant to help Vietnam customs carry out an electronic manifest pilot program. The USTDA said the test will demonstrate the benefits of the Secure Trade in the APEC (Asia-Pacific...

Bush nominates Connaughton to head Marad.
July 10, 2006... President Bush nominated Sean T. Connaughton as administrator of the Maritime Administration, Connaughton is an attorney in the maritime and transportation practice of Atlanta law firm Troutman Sanders LLP, based in Washington. He also serves...

Carrier Corp. acquires Sensitech Inc.
July 10, 2006... Carrier Corp., a business unit of United Technologies Corp. has taken a major step into cold-chain logistics with the decision to purchase all business operations of privately held Sensitech Inc., a leading global provider of cold-chain...

Group set for container security.
July 10, 2006... An organization devoted to setting standards for container security devices was recently announced in Brussels. Some of the biggest names in container security technology - General Electric, Siemens, JP Morgan Chase, GreenLine Systems,...

South Korea announces Miami cargo flights.
July 10, 2006... A public relations announcement stating that Korean Air remains the top cargo carrier in the world included a revelation that Miami International Airport had hoped to keep secret a few months longer - Air Korea cargo flights to MIA. The...

Airbus jets at risk.
July 10, 2006... The International Lease Finance Corp., the world's biggest aircraft leasing company, is threatening to cancel its $3 billion order for Airbus A380 after the plane's maker delayed delivery of the jets for a second time. Airbus told ILFC...

UPS Air Cargo hikes fuel charge.
July 10, 2006... UPS Air Cargo, which handles freight supplied from outside forwarders, raised its fuel surcharge to a record 65 cents a kilogram for U.S.-origin freight, effective June 26. In a letter posted to its Web site, James Owens, UPS vice president...

Redesign in the works for Grand Bahama port.
July 10, 2006... Building a new cruise ship facility in Grand Bahama is top on the list of planned developmental projects, Hannes Babak, chairman of the Grand Bahama Port Authority, told reporters on June 27. Babak said port officials are in talks with key...

El Salvador seeks Trinidad and Tobago ties.
July 10, 2006... Knowlson Gift, foreign affairs minister of Trinidad and Tobago, recently announced plans by El Salvador to establish an embassy in Trinidad and Tobago. This was concluded at a delegation meeting at the end of June with El Salvador's Ministry of...

Kingston port congestion slows local business.
July 10, 2006... The port authority of Jamaica says the congestion at the Kingston Container Terminal, which importers have blamed for delays over the past two months in the arrival of their goods, has been cleared. But local manufacturers and retailers are...

Los Angeles truckers approve PierPass.
July 10, 2006... Harbor truck drivers in Los Angeles-Long Beach report that the PierPass extended gates program has helped to reduce congestion on local freeways and within marine terminals. Some 480 drivers responded to a survey performed by the opinion...

Wireless installation finished at Port Manatee.
July 10, 2006... The Port Manatee Forestry Terminal, the largest importer of plywood and wood fencing in the Southeast, has installed wireless tracking components from Southeastern Communication Service Inc., which allow the terminal to maintain an updated...

Crowley shifts petroleum services to Jacksonville.
July 10, 2006... Marine Transport Corp., part of Crowley Maritime Corp.'s petroleum services group, on July 1 relocated its Secaucus, N.J., offices to Jacksonville, Fla. In addition, Marine Transport Lines, a Marine Transport Corp. subsidiary focused on...

It's about timing: CARICOM nations ready for FTA with USA.
July 17, 2006... The leaders of the 12 island nations of the Caribbean Community concluded their annual meeting on July 6 with a general agreement to embrace globalism. They have agreed to start to blur island borders and to begin discussion with the U.S. about...

Timing is everything: Panama Canal construction could clog by 2009.
July 17, 2006... BYLINE: Peter T. Leach With the Panama Canal having just imposed the second of three scheduled toll increases and planning to raise rates further to cover a proposed $5.25 billion expansion, some analysts say the Suez Canal is emerging as...

Food fight: Food shippers caught in regulation wrangle.
July 17, 2006... The International Air Transport Association hosted its inaugural Perishable Goods Conference June 6-7 in The Hague, Netherlands, to help the industry get on the same page dealing with perishables cargoes handled by cargo airlines, regulatory...

Streamlining the farm trade.
July 17, 2006... BYLINE: Rosalind McLymont Perhaps no inspection issue arouses more ire today than phytosanitary (health and safety) standards on agricultural goods. When the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service...

Inspection services seek to boost role in trade security.
July 17, 2006... BYLINE: Rosalind McLymont John Broadhurst was on his way home from his office in Geneva, Switzerland, one evening when he described his wish list for the international cargo inspection industry. In the post-Sept. 11 trade environment,...

Busy work.
July 17, 2006... While it may be easier and far more obvious to build a fence or post a guard, there is always the problem of who pays for the fence or manages the guard and who gets the kick-back. Congress and the Department of Homeland Security have spent...

Customs update: Anti-terror measures trumping trade.
July 17, 2006... BYLINE: Susan Kohn Ross The Government Accountability Office in March issued a startling report describing how undercover government investigators used fake documents to enter the U.S. with enough radioactive material to make two dirty...

Mineta calls on bipartisan support for transportation solutions.
July 17, 2006... Departing Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta told business leaders on July 6 that the U.S. can lose its position as an economic leader in the world if it does not resolve its transportation infrastructure problems. "History may very...

C-TPAT portal delayed.
July 17, 2006... The deadline for submissions to the C-TPAT security link portal profile has been extended to Oct. 1. After that date, all C-TPAT members must submit supply-chain security profile data to the C-TPAT Security Link Portal. The delay was approved...

Christmas bugs in China.
July 17, 2006... When the World Trade Organization delegates met to thrash out the world's major trade issues, little was resolved except for the dicey problem of exported Chinese wooden Christmas trees. It seems that routine inspections at U.S. ports of...

DHS allots $168 million for port security.
July 17, 2006... The Department of Homeland Security announced that some $168 million will be available for port security out of $400 million in fiscal 2006 infrastructure protection grants. Port security grants will be awarded to "create sustainable,...

UPS and union reps reach accord.
July 17, 2006... The Independent Pilots Association and UPS announced that after nearly four years, they have reached a tentative agreement on a new labor contract that provides wage and pension improvements. While specific details will not be disclosed...

US air cargo, packages up in May.
July 17, 2006... The volume of international airfreight and express shipments increased 11.9 percent year-on-year in May to 1.17 billion revenue ton-miles, according to the latest statistics about U.S. air-cargo carriers who are members of the Air Transport...

Congressman: Homeland security for cruise ships.
July 17, 2006... U.S. Rep. Christopher Shays, R-Conn., wants the Department of Homeland Security to inspect every cruise ship that docks in the U.S. to ensure that they all have adequate equipment and trained personnel to investigate crimes. Shays has also...

CKYH adjusts East Coast calls.
July 17, 2006... The CKYH Alliance said it is adding calls at Charleston and Norfolk and dropping Houston from the rotation of its new AWE-5 all-water service between Asia and the U.S. East Coast. When the alliance of Cosco, "K" Line, Yang Ming and Hanjin...

Tropical Shipping offers online tools.
July 17, 2006... Freeport, Bahamas, customers who log onto the popular Tropical Shipping Web site - www.tropical.com - can now view the company's latest shipping schedules, create a booking, register their company online, search for shipping rates, track their...

DR ports to add detection technology.
July 17, 2006... Ports in the Dominican Republic plan to install "new technologies and the acquisition of X-rays to avoid delays," the nation's customs director, Miguel Cocco, told local radio listeners in early July. Cocco said the equipment will be...

Caribbean calls for more assistance in crime fighting.
July 17, 2006... Trinidad and Tobago has already hired more than 200 police officers from England in an attempt to reduce its record-setting murder rate and now the Caribbean Community (Caricom) has reiterated its call for increased international financial and...

US business disappointed by Doha failure.
July 17, 2006... The American Business Coalition for Doha on July 7 expressed disappointment that members of the World Trade Organization failed to move talks past the current impasse. "There has been little substantive progress over the past few months of...

Top shelf: Warehouses offer many logistics options.
July 24, 2006... Warehouse operators are scrambling to expand services and extend their geographical reach as industry consolidation and shipper demands push them into new relationships with customers and former competitors. The dynamic warehousing market,...

Not distinguished by criticality.
July 24, 2006... Last week we spoke about the potential for wasted effort and money inherent in the National Infrastructure Protection Plan, which was promulgated over the July 4 holiday by the Department of Homeland Security. The NIPP is a companion to the...

DHS recruits another Coast Guard officer to agency post.
July 24, 2006... The succession of Coast Guard executives recruited to the Department of Homeland Security continued recently when Secretary Michael Chertoff selected Roger T. Rufe Jr., vice admiral, USCG (Ret.), as the next director of the department's...

Inttra, P&I clubs set standard bill-of-lading terms.
July 24, 2006... Inttra, a major e-commerce platform for the ocean freight industry organized and supported by a dozen of the world's major container lines, has announced the approval of a standardized legal agreement that is required for printing bills of...

Grand Bahama Port Authority sheds Bahamians.
July 24, 2006... Bahamian natives including attorneys, the president of the Senate and the former head of a major Bahamian bank have resigned from the Grand Bahama Port Authority amid charges in local papers that the non-Bahamian principals of the port "are...

Senate delays hemisphere passport.
July 24, 2006... The Senate has approved an amendment and sent to the House a bill containing a 15-month reprieve from a new requirement that Canadian and Caribbean residents must show their passports every time they cross the border into the United States. ...

Taiwan-Nicaragua FTA advances.
July 24, 2006... A Nicaraguan free-trade agreement with Taiwan was recently approved by its Cabinet and sent to the Legislature. Taiwan sent the new draft treaty to the Legislative Yuan for ratification after it was signed by Economics Affairs Minister...

US, Guatemala to offer retroactive duty treatment on apparel.
July 24, 2006... The U.S. Trade Representative has announced Determination of Eligibility for Retroactive Duty Treatment for Guatemala textiles and apparel. Those interested in applying should contact Abiola Heyliger, director of textile trade policy,...

Thanks to CAFTA, Caribbean trade booms.
July 24, 2006... BYLINE: Richard Knee Trade pact produces some twists. Heavy transshipment traffic reportedly chokes Kingston. Shortly before the U.S. agreed last August to join a free-trade agreement with five Central American nations and the...

Smooth peak season seen for US container gateways.
July 24, 2006... BYLINE: Bill Mongelluzzo U.S. container ports should avoid serious congestion problems this summer and fall even though cargo volume is building rapidly toward a record peak season, according to the July Port Tracker published by Global...

Keeping independents dependent.
July 27, 2006... I can remember how Chris Morton felt about the port dray business at the Port of Miami and other ports and how he felt the independent truckers - most of them immigrants - were victims of circumstances and the greed of their dispatchers. Morton...

Special Report: Port of Miami.
July 31, 2006... BYLINE: Rick Eyerdam The calm of connection When Bill Johnson was an intern in the office of the Dade County manager more than 26 years ago, he paid a courtesy call on then-port director Carmen Lunetta. Johnson was fresh out of...

Let the bidding begin.
July 31, 2006... BYLINE: Bill Mongelluzzo Now that DP World has begun distribution of the financials for its U.S. terminal operations, including its half share at the Port of Miami Terminal Operating Co., who are possible buyers? No U.S. terminal...

Port of Miami expands its reach.
July 31, 2006... The Dante B. Fascell Port of Miami will add another new cargo service on Aug. 2 when the EAG/Victory Bridge Service links the U.S. East Coast to Europe. The services of CMA CGM and China Shipping Service where EAG stands for...

ILA won't man port scanners.
July 31, 2006... The International Longshoremen's Association says its members no longer will remain with containers while they are being scanned by VACIS equipment at marine terminals. The Port of Miami employs the VACIS machines. An announcement from ILA...

Alternate bill of lading for NAFTA available.
July 31, 2006... The North American Uniform Through Bill of Lading (NABOL), a standardized surface bill of lading for the three NAFTA countries, became effective July 22. The NABOL provides that the law of the country where the shipment originates is...

Maersk signs 20-year deal with Georgia Ports Authority.
July 31, 2006... Maersk Line recently signed a 20-year agreement with the Georgia Ports Authority, which eschews the landlord port concept employed at most Florida container ports. The deal includes a 10-year renewal option to allow for growth in container...

ILA re-elects district officers.
July 31, 2006... The International Longshoremen's Association's South Atlantic and Gulf District re-elected all of its officers except Arthur Coffey, who did not seek another term as district vice president. Coffey, who was acquitted of extortion conspiracy...

New Customs port director for MIA.
July 31, 2006... Harold E. Woodward has been selected to become the port director at the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Miami Service Port, better known as Miami International Airport. Woodward fills a position that has been managed by a series of...

UPS, FedEx subpoenaed in air-cargo probe.
July 31, 2006... FedEx Corp. and UPS have received federal subpoenas for documents as part of a Justice Department investigation into alleged price fixing in the air-cargo industry. FedEx and UPS said they are cooperating with the Justice Department and that...

Crowley acquires more equipment.
July 31, 2006... Crowley Maritime is acquiring 5,105 pieces of equipment for use between the U.S. and Central America, Puerto Rico and the Caribbean. Delivery of 1,811 new 45-foot high-security containers began in June. In February, part of an order for...

Uruguay port approved.
July 31, 2006... Uruguay's President Tabare Vazquez has approved the construction of a $300 million port, at Puntas del Chileno in Maldonado. "This is a $300 million project proposed by the private sector as part of the program to reactivate Uruguay's...

ESPMC-WITASS conference to raise rates.
July 31, 2006... The ESPMC-WITASS conference has announced two stages of rate increase in the trades from Europe to the west coast of South America and the Caribbean. Beginning in September, rates will increase by 150 euros ($190) per TEU. A second...

Crowley to expand in Caribbean.
July 31, 2006... Crowley Maritime Corp. in cooperation with its local shipping agent, Booth Steamship Co., a subsidiary of Barbados Shipping & Trading (BS&T), is evaluating a number of service enhancements to benefit Caribbean island customers, according to...

Juice train squeezes backhaul from reefer rail capacity.
July 31, 2006... BYLINE: John Gallagher Tropicana may be synonymous with orange juice, but offering premium freight space is fast becoming another way the company is making money and cutting costs for shippers and its rail partners. The company, part...

Short-sea advocates getting weary.
July 31, 2006... BYLINE: R.G. Edmonson Short-sea shipping is still an untested idea in the marketplace, and members of the Ship Operations Cooperative Program found that some of the would-be industry's most dedicated advocates are growing impatient. ...