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Haitian Government Alerts Residents To Tropical Wave
SANTO DOMINGO, May 22 (BERNAMA-NNN-XINHUA) -- Haitian authorities Tuesday called on communities in western Haiti to stay alert to possible downpour and thunderstorms caused by a tropical wave over the southeastern region.
Haiti's National Meteorological Centre (CNM) announced Monday night the formation of the year's first tropical wave, located south of the Caribbean Basin, saying it could lead to heavy rains in three provinces -- Sud, Centre and Artibonite.
The CNM said the low-pressure phenomenon, which arrived earlier than the usual hurricane season in the Atlantic, could cause extreme weather patterns, and residents in high-risk zones should take precautionary measures.
Experts from Weather Services International (WSI) have forecast a very active hurricane season for this year, with at least 16 storms, including nine hurricanes, five of which are expected to be above Category 3.
The annual hurricane season begins June 1 and lasts through Nov 30.
Last year, Haiti was pummelled by Hurricane Sandy and Tropical Storm Isaac, as well as other minor storms, that killed nearly 100 people, left some 250,000 homeless and caused agricultural losses of more than US$100 million.
New all-water, Houston-Puerto Rico service to call Jacintoport
A new all-water service connecting Houston with San Juan, Puerto Rico, will launch May 29 when the U.S.-flagged containership National Glory departs the Port of Houston Authority's Jacintoport terminal on its maiden voyage. The new 14-day service, which is being provided by National Shippers of America (NSA), is called "Isla Verde Express" and will provide customers with more transit options and supply chain flexibility in this "under-served" market, NSA officials say. "After careful market analysis, we found that shippers west of the Mississippi River have few options to move cargo to and from Puerto Rico without having to use an East Coast port," said Torey Presti, NSA president. "A significant percentage of the mainland-Puerto Rico cargo is from Texas and the western states. By calling Houston, the service will offer a central U.S. location, which together with synchronized intermodal connections, enhances the options for shippers and keeps their supply chains predictable and steady." In addition to its centralized location, Jacintoport provides a broad range of intermodal, warehousing and logistics support. The terminal will provide direct rail connections, warehouse and terminal services to NSA. Value-added services include warehousing, crossdocking, transloading and bagging. Cargo will discharge from the vessel and be available both in Houston and San Juan early on Tuesdays for delivery to distribution centers or onward intermodal transport without a weekend delay. Typical commodities shipped to Puerto Rico include resins, rice, beans, chemicals, beverages and produce. From Puerto Rico, the U.S. mainland receives medical supplies, foodstuffs and beverages. In addition to dry and refrigerated containers, the National Glory – a converted tweendecker – is configured to accommodate a wide range of oversize, out-of-gauge and project cargo.
Up and down the Atlantic coast, US ports are abuzz. Dredging machines, tunnel excavators, and highway pavers from Miami to New York are preparing metropolitan economies and their ports for a newly expanded Panama Canal. As the thinking goes, an expanded Canal promises bigger ships, bigger cargo loads--and each metro wants a piece of the bigger business.
But lost in this port-related arms race is what the newly-widened Panama Canal means for the US economy . Too many metropolitan areas simply assume they’ll immediately acquire new freight business when the expanded Canal opens, or that there will be more business at all. These billion-dollar assumptions ignore a more fundamental question: how and where will the Panama Canal affect US’ global goods trade?
Answering that question requires a broader view, one less predicated on ship size and more on economy size. It also requires metropolitan areas to gain a better understanding of their goods trading relationships, and how those relationships power their local economies.
It’s time to have a frank conversation about what investments like the Panama Canal mean for US trade and economic growth.
First, let’s start with a little context. The Panama Canal, set to celebrate its 100th birthday next year, is one of the world’s most important trade assets. It primarily helps connect US Atlantic and Gulf ports to their trading partners in Asia, Oceania, and South America. Driven by those major markets, the Canal already moves over 330 million tons of freight each year.
However, the Canal suffers from capacity constraints. The world's largest ships can no longer fit through certain locks, meaning the Canal was ill-prepared for its second century. In response, Panama initiated a major overhaul including two new locks, plus widening and deepening several existing channels. When complete in 2015, larger container ships will expand potential trade volumes between the Americas and Asia--and more seamlessly connect global markets in the process. The promise of these larger ships is the inspiration behind the Atlantic ports’ major capital projects.
Yet, as ports carry out such extensive projects, questions and skepticism linger over the future direction of freight movement and the long-term economic implications. How will ports handle the extra time it takes to load and unload the new mammoth ships? How will Pacific port investments in the United States and Canada counter the investments at the Atlantic ports? These uncertainties complicate analysts’ and policymakers’ abilities to identify exactly how the expansion will shift the precise location and scope of all freight flows.
The country and its metropolitan leaders need a way to remove these uncertainties. And it begins with a better understanding of our current goods trading relationships at the metropolitan scale.
As it stands, metropolitan data is scant. There is no geographically-consistent database of what goods metropolitan areas consume and what goods they export. Similarly, there is no database of geographic trading relationships with their domestic and international peers, or which ports facilitate the international side of the trade ledger
Imagine if the United States didn’t know how much electronics it imported from China, or how much oil it imported from the Middle East. That’s the situation metropolitan economic and freight leaders face.
It’s time to get a better handle on these regional trade relationships. Local, state, and federal officials should know which metropolitan areas trade the most goods with Asia, and are therefore the most sensitive to the Panama Canal’s capacity. They should also know how these goods flow between markets—whether they’re more reliant on Pacific or Atlantic ports, and how a capacity change on either coast could shift that equation.
This kind of knowledge also extends beyond just the Panama Canal. As other freight investments come online across the United States and the world, public and private sector leaders should have the statistical tools to know what’s at stake. A more thorough understanding of the country’s metropolitan trading network would help inform local investment decisions like we’re seeing in Baltimore and Norfolk. It would also inform a national freight strategy that prioritizes investments with the highest returns.
The metropolitan reaction to the Canal widening is a microcosm for what the country misses when it comes to freight planning. In a relatively fact-free zone, it’s easy for local ports to justify these major investments. But dredging a port or building a tunnel costs significantly more than simply upgrading our knowledge base.
Even with global trade slowing its growth since the Great Recession, there’s little question that goods volumes will continue to rise in the coming decades, whether through the Panama Canal or elsewhere. It’s time we make sure our metropolitan economies have the knowledge to succeed in that environment.
The Brookings Metropolitan Policy team will aim to address that knowledge gap over the coming year. Working with a team of outside experts, we've assembled a geographically-consistent, globally-oriented goods trade database. In turn, the analytics from that database will help us provide public and private sector leaders with a better understanding of exactly what, where, and how metropolitan areas trade goods and the implications for their local economies. We are excited to start sharing those results this fall.
Editor’s note: The US has reached the goal once thought impossible by achieving energy independence. This happened, ironically, on the Democrat’s watch and despite confounding environmental constraints. Energy access was the only weakness in the US economy and altered all foreign policy and trade balance equations. The nation is free and we ought to celebrate. This article is another positive sign of the great future we confront. RE)
U. S. Achieves Parity with Mexico as a Preferred Manufacturing Location; To Achieve Cost Parity with China by 2015
But, look before you leap – nearshoring may not be profitable in all situations
04.18.13
NEWYORK (April 18, 2013) – In another sign that America is becoming more competitive in manufacturing, the United States is now equal to Mexico in “attractiveness” as a source for manufacturing operations and is on track to achieve cost parity with manufactured imports from China by 2015. However, before companies set up or move production from formerly favored locales, including China, they need to perform thorough, case-by-case analyses as a number of critical factors -- including product type, location, transportation and other variables -- can greatly impact attractiveness and cost-effectiveness. That’s according to new research, including a survey of 137 C-level manufacturing-company executives and an in-depth economic and cost analysis, released today by AlixPartners, the global business advisory firm.
In the AlixPartners survey, 37% of manufacturing executives said they would choose the U.S. as their preferred location for nearshoring (defined as moving production of products closer to the U.S. consumer base). While an equal percentage of respondents cited Mexico as the most attractive nearshoring locale, the U.S. continues to post impressive gains versus perceptions of just a few years ago. In a similar AlixPartners survey last year, 49% of executives said they would choose Mexico, while 36% said they would choose the U.S. In the firm’s survey just two years ago, 63% chose Mexico, while only 19% said they would choose the U.S.
However, while AlixPartners’ accompanying economic and manufacturing cost analysis finds that some goods can indeed be manufactured at an equal or lower cost in Mexico than in China, many other types of products cannot. This provides clear evidence that in all cases, many factors need to be carefully analyzed and weighed before nearshoring or reshoring takes place. For example, AlixPartners found that while the “China cost” for items analyzed such as machined aluminum parts, plastic molded parts, non-denim slacks, and knit apparel and sweaters is indeed on the rise, that cost is still lower than Mexico’s in each case – and is forecast to remain lower through at least 2015.
“The U.S. is definitely a more cost-competitive source for manufacturing today than it has been in many, many years,” said Steve Maurer, managing director at AlixPartners and leader of the firm’s Manufacturing Practice in the Americas. “In fact, the cost gap with China has on average been closed by approximately 70% for the products we analyzed. However, some consultants have taken that fact and tried to apply it with a broad brush across all of their clients and all of their clients’ products. As our analytical and product-specific research shows, that could be a big mistake.”
With a resounding 84% of the C-level executives surveyed by AlixPartners saying that the decision to nearshore their manufacturing would be an important one during the next year (versus just 53% who said the same last year), it is clear that nearshoring and reshoring decisions are moving to the “front burner” in 2013. According to AlixPartners, factors that need to be carefully analyzed before shifting production include product type, raw materials costs, labor costs, inventory costs, exchange rates, duties, freight costs and overhead costs, among others.
“Without question, these are absolutely critical decisions for company leaders. When it comes to moving production, companies should look twice before they leap,” said Foster Finley, managing director at AlixPartners and leader of the firm’s Supply Chain Practice in the Americas. “Not only do product-cost variables vary widely by product type, but several factors, such as exchange rates, materials costs and labor agreements, can all have a dramatic impact on the outcome.”
Approximately 58% of the respondents to the AlixPartners survey said that for production that has either already been nearshored or is being considered for nearshoring, they have either reduced or expect to reduce their total “landed cost” by 5% to 20%. Landed cost is the calculation of all aspects of bringing a product to its point of sale, including transportation costs, duties and the expense of inventory in transit.
Regarding landed costs, AlixPartners’ research showed that a number of other variables need to be considered by executives before making nearshoring decisions. While rising production costs, today’s exchange rates and the cost of transporting goods currently make China a more expensive product source than it was a decade ago, it remains important to consider future costs when making sourcing decisions, says the firm.
But, if current trends remain in place, AlixPartners finds that, on average, by 2015 the cost of importing manufactured products from China will be about the same as manufacturing them in the U.S. However, other key low-cost countries, such as Mexico and India, will remain highly competitive, thus highlighting the need for case-by-case analyses when evaluating nearshoring. According to AlixPartners’ analysis, Mexico and India have maintained cost advantages vis-à-vis China of 15% to 20%, similar to the advantage levels China enjoyed over other low-cost countries in the early 2000s.
Furthermore, according to AlixPartners, even when economic advantages are clear and risks are low, there are significant barriers to nearshoring that must be considered, such as the often massive costs of switching manufacturing locations, and the current shortages in the U.S. of foundational manufacturing assets and of manufacturing talent and management.
About the Study
The AlixPartners Manufacturing-Sourcing Outlookanalyzed manufacturing sourcing costs, patterns and expectations related to meeting U.S. demand. The Outlook includes data from the AlixPartners Manufacturing-Sourcing Index™, which analyzes a variety of manufactured products and compares the cost to build them in various low-cost countries and transport them to the U.S. versus the cost of manufacturing them in the U.S., tracking several key cost drivers. Those drivers include labor costs, transportation costs, raw-materials costs, inventory costs, capital-equipment costs, overhead costs, duties and exchange rates. The Outlook also included an online survey, conducted in March, of 137 C-level executives from manufacturing-related companies across more than 10 industries. Among the companies represented in the survey, approximately half had annual revenue of $1 billion or more, and all of the respondents said they sourced production across multiple continents.
Dueling shipping languages- Spanish speakers meet in Porto Cortes
English speakers in Freeport
From May 13 to 16 Honduras will be the site of a meeting of the main port operators and authorities in Central America and the Dominican Republic.
During that same period the Caribbean Shipping Association will be meeting in Freeport, Grand Bahama to discuss port and trade efficiency.
Neither has invited delegates from the Caribbean Maritime Exchange to participate in the discussion or recommend potential solutions. And the fact the two Caribbean bodies are meeting at the same time clearly indicates a major gap that must be overcome before the Caribbean Maritime community find a holistic solution to participation in Global Trade
The main topics of discussion at the Honduras event will include: Efficiency in Receiving Cargo and Ships, Optimization of the Supply Chain Process, Developments in Port Operations, Private Public Participation Processes, Uniform Processes for the Reception and Handling of Ships, Effects of Climate Change in Port Areas, Impact and Regulatory Compliance on Measures for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships in Port Operations (MARPOL), Port State Control of Illegal, Unreported and not Controlled Fishing, Development of the Cruise Industry, Maritime Security and Port Security, among other topics.
The meeting will involve representatives from leading operators and port authorities in Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama and the Dominican Republic, and major and recognized experts, to hear at first-hand the experiences and direct knowledge of the ports of the region.
For Honduras, and particularly for the ENP, the event is important given the transformation processes in Puerto Cortes, needed to improve flow and create an efficient supply chain in Honduras.
May 9, 2013By Jenny Callison (with help from local editor)
Collaborative efforts between the Port of Wilmington and Maersk Line could well boost North Carolina exports as well as increase imports through the port and dramatically reduce the truck traffic from the Carolinas to Miami and back, thereby reducing one major cargo for South Florida ports and carriers
One change earlier this year has resulted from efforts by the port and Maersk, a shipping line based in Denmark with a regional office in Charlotte, to encourage North Carolina yarn manufacturers to switch the way they transport their products to finishing facilities in Central America. Until now, many of the state’s mills have used 4-foot-by-4-foot pallets, which don’t fit side-by-side in standard 8-foot-wide ship containers. Instead, the mills have trucked their pallets to southern Florida, where they are loaded onto specialty carriers, said Peter Klaus, the ports authority’s vice president of liner sales.
The Port of Wilmington and Maersk have now convinced companies to switch to 4-foot-by-3-foot pallets, which can fit comfortably into the containers. Finished garments from the Central American manufacturing facilities are shipped back to the U.S. as imports.
Maersk, reportedly the world’s largest container shipping line, has provided weekly service between the Port of Wilmington and Honduras and Guatemala for four years. The company has served Wilmington for five years, Klaus said.
Klaus said that this more efficient supply chain was positive for the mills’ bottom lines. And there is an unexpected benefit of the shorter truck hauls. John Maness, executive vice president of Sanford, N.C.-based Frontier Spinning Mills, was quoted in the trade journal American Shipper as saying that his company’s product arrived in better condition at its Central American destinations.
More cargo going through the Port of Wilmington is also positive for the State of North Carolina.
Maersk also announced this week that it would add port calls in Panama and Costa Rica to its weekly South Atlantic Express, which serves the Port of Wilmington. According to the ports authority’s news release, the Port of Wilmington will now offer shippers direct access to Manzanillo, Panama and Puerto Moin, Costa Rica. Maersk’s South Atlantic Express already calls at Puerto Cortes, Honduras and Santo Tomas, Guatemala.
Service to Panama opens up even more opportunities for exports and imports through North Carolina ports, Klaus said.
“Once a vessel docks in Panama, it can transship through feeder services to the north coast of South America, the west coast of South America, the Caribbean, Australia and New Zealand,” he said. “It broadens our market base and commodities reach.”
The commodities frequently imported to North America include fruits and vegetables from northern South America and wines from Chile. In-demand exports from the state to Latin American markets include auto parts and paper.
MEXICO CITY, - Panama Canal authorities expect a 2.4 percent decline in cargo volume crossing the waterway this fiscal year after two major shipping companies rerouted vessels through the Suez Canal, the canal administrator said.
In March, Maersk Line, the world’s largest container shipping company and the Panama Canal’s top customer, announced it would reroute services from Asia to the East Coast of the United States via the Suez Canal.
Though taking 11 days longer, the company says the move saves money as it can nearly double its load on bigger ships.
Adding to the pain, the canal lost out on three potential new services from APL, the container shipping unit of Singapore’s Neptune Orient Lines (NOL).
The company is launching a new service from Asia to the United States’ eastern seaboard in May but has chosen to send three services through Suez, saying it is more profitable.
Nonetheless, three of the six services will go via Panama.
“It’s something we knew was going to happen,” said Jorge Quijano, who heads the semi-autonomous Panama Canal Authority, adding that the canal will lose about $40 million a year in revenue as a result.
Quijano said he expects one company to add a service on the route, although he declined to say which one.
Carrying about 5 percent of world trade, the Panama Canal is undergoing a $5.25 billion expansion, which will open six months later than planned in mid-2015.
A larger third lane will fit ships 1,200 feet (365 meters) long and 50 feet (15 meters) deep and carrying nearly three times as many containers.
China backing out of Jamaica transshipment port at Fort Augusta
The decision by industry leader Maersk to build ships larger than the expanded Panama Canal and sail instead through the Suez Canal between Asia and Europe is beginning to have its first major ripple effects.
Already port futurists including John Vickerman are predicting that Panama and not the Caribbean, nor Miami, will provide all the necessary transshipment terminals to deal with the increased volumn of post Panamax shipping through the canal.
Two years ago the head of the Panama Canal warned only three ports in the United States would benefit from the canal’s increased width with Virginia and New York/New Jersey at the top of that list.
Remove the Maersk volume from the equation and the expanded Panama Canal seems a far riskier proposition to sustain than it was when import growth in the US was predicted at 9 percent year over year, back in the silly days after Y2K.
The first sign that the charade was collapsing was the leak from PortaMiami Director, a career Dade County administrator, that he just might take that job over at the Beacon Council and let somebody else clean up the mess that is the port’s misguided masterplan.
Hopefully they can throw a net over Juan Kuryla before he accepts the Jaxport executive job and keep him in Miami, where he has been running the day-to-day of the port for years.
The second sign the Post Panamax fabric is coming part is much less subtle. Jerome Reynolds of the Jamaica, Gleaner was paying attention when Jamaican Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller in her contribution to the Budget Debate disclosed that China Harbour Engineering Company, which had agreed to build a giant new transshipment facility at Fort Augusta is looking for a way out by suggesting that the lands at Fort Augusta are insufficient for its plans.
Fort Augusta is across a shallow, easily dredgeable bay from the Port of Kingston along the Kingston Highway.
China Harbour and the Port Authority of Jamaica had signed an Memorandum of Understanding to explore the plans to establish a new transshipment port at Fort Augusta.
Simpson Miller said because of the land issues the company has indicated that it no longer has an interest in the project as it is.
She said a new construction site is needed to accommodate the planned investment by China Harbour.
Simpson Miller said the project is to be implemented over a five year period and will see the construction of transshipment facilities, a logistics centre, industrial plants, a cement plant and possibly a power plant.
She said some 2,000 workers are to be employed during constructions and another 10,000 jobs are to be created if the project is completed. So the wishful thinking and hopeful promising from the politicians continues, even in the face of a less blurry reality.
Cyalume Technologies Holdings, Inc. Appoints Michael J. Pellicci as Chief Financial Officer
Most recently he held the positions of President, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of Tropical Shipping and Construction Company
Cyalume Technologies Holdings, Inc. (OTCBB: CYLU) (“the Company” or “Cyalume”) today announced that it has appointed Michael J. Pellicci as the Company’s Chief Financial Officer, effective immediately. Mr. Pellicci will succeed Michael Bielonko, who will assume the responsibilities of Vice President of Finance.
Mr. Pellicci, 49, has extensive management experience with small- and medium-sized companies. Most recently he held the positions of President, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of Tropical Shipping and Construction Company Limited (“Tropical”), a containerized shipping company that was a subsidiary of Nicor and then AGL Resources (through the merger of Nicor and AGL Resources in December 2011). He joined Tropical in March 2006 as its Chief Financial Officer. Prior to Tropical, he was Senior Vice President – Finance and Planning, Treasurer & Chief Accounting Officer at Seabulk International, Inc., a shipping company operating in the tanker, towing and offshore segments. Seabulk was acquired by SEACOR Holdings Inc. in July 2005, and Mr. Pellicci remained with that company through January 2006 as Vice President – Finance. Previously, he held several financial positions including Director of Corporate Finance and Corporate Controller at Caraustar Industries, Inc., a manufacturer of recycled paperboard and converted products. Mr. Pellicci is a Certified Public Accountant. He holds a B.S. in Business Administration from The Citadel and an M.B.A. from Georgia State University.
Cyalume’s President & CEO, Zivi Nedivi noted, “I am very pleased to welcome Mike Pellicci to our team. I believe that his wealth of financial experience coupled with his impressive roster of leadership positions in a variety of industries will greatly benefit Cyalume. Mike Bielonko has played an important role in Cyalume’s growth and evolution for the last several years, and I am happy that he has agreed to remain an active member of our management team."
Mr. Pellicci noted, “I look forward to becoming an integral part of Cyalume’s management team and continuing to grow the business through internal development and M&A activity. I am confident that this management team can execute upon the vision and plan Zivi has strategically laid out.”
About Cyalume Technologies Holdings, Inc.
Cyalume designs and manufactures non-pyrotechnic tactical products and training solutions for the world's militaries and law enforcement agencies, as well as for certain safety markets. Cyalume is the exclusive supplier to the U.S. and NATO-country militaries for all of their chemical light needs and operates manufacturing facilities in the U.S. and France. Through its subsidiary Cyalume Specialty Products, Cyalume also manufactures specialty chemical components for various markets.
MILAN, ITALY — Cannon Group will supply a complete foaming plant to Maersk Container Industry (MCI) for the manufacture of reefers, temperature-controlled containers used to transport frozen or refrigerated goods.
Total investment in the project is $170 million, but Cannon did not specify if this was for the factory as a whole, or for its foaming plant.
The equipment will be installed in MCI's new factory in San Antonio, Chile. This will be the first reefer manufacturing facility in some time to be located outside China and the first in Latin America, Cannon said in an April 24 news release. Cannon added that most recent global reefer manufacturing capacity has been located in China, where MCI operates a plant in Qingdao.
The new plant is scheduled to open at the beginning of 2014. MCI said the new factory will help correct the reefer trade imbalance that disadvantages exporters of fresh produce, such as fish and meat from western South America.
The core of the plant will be a polyurethane injection plant, where all the foam-insulated components of the box reefer will be manufactured. It will be able to produce reefers at a rate of one complete box assembled every nine minutes, Cannon said.
