Panama has the potential to attract and move more cargo in its transportation network consisting transshipment ports in the country, conquering new sea routes.
Established routes between Asian countries and the entire Pacific coast of Latin America, from Mexico to Chile are routes that move a heavy load and do not touch Panama, said the president of the Panama Chamber of Shipping, Rommel Troetsch.
‘With greater port capacity, offering instead of making such a long route between source and destination, a transfer that allows distribute the goods of a big ship in small boats Panama could attract more shipping lines’, he said.
PORT OF COROZAL
To Troetsch the market is there and is visible in the interest of some shipping companies operating on these routes in pre-qualify for the port concession Corozal.
«Obviously there are shipping companies that handle the load and have the volume, know that volume there and are trying to have its own port and handle the load through Panama ‘he stressed.
According to the specialist in port issues, the Panama Canal expansion project puts the country again as a major player in shipping because it was getting late and limited in the size of ships that could move with the expansion is nearly tripling the size of the boat.
‘The rules of the international game are changing, now you can move a boat with three times more containers and gain a competitive advantage and that advantage is for all who use the Canal, which is a very successful industry’ he said.
Troetsch ports is explained that a different industry that leverages Panama Canal with and that has to do to port development, as a way to move more cargo. ‘If Panama moves more cargo transshipment is creating more jobs and facilitates the development of what is the logistics industry to develop value-added logistics that have to move a lot of breakbulk’.
There are two types of logistics, says the specialist, domestic logistics, which is the logistics purely transportation, origin and destination and the logistics of the cargo passing through Panama and give added value and manage inventory for distribution or make a small step manufacturing as labeling or packaging.
TREATMENT TO LOAD
«Panama has to aspire to not only see pass the burden, but the same between a Panamanian logistics system or a logistics platform to be worked and then back out. The north of the country is that the ports, the Canal and the Colon Free Zone (CFZ) is transformed into a platform of value-added service to the load ‘he said.
He stressed that in the end who determines whether the charge comes to Panama or is not the owner of the same and based on whether the conditions offered seeking as efficient ports, logistics and value-added services. ‘The closer the port is better to develop the infrastructure to provide value added services’.
In that sense, the executive director of the Maritime Chamber of Panama, Luciano Fernandes, said that for the port of Corozal thirteen companies made their proposals and at the end were 10, representing the largest operators of port terminals and are subsidiaries of large shipping the world, which means that there is an interest involving a return on investment.
Additional reported that in one week the Maritime Authority of Panama could be announcing the construction of a port in Amador to meet the auxiliary maritime industry, a request for more than 10 years of the organization.
DATA EXISTS
The statistical data is vital because with it you can plan and even measure how the business is and where it goes, how it moves and from which countries. In the case of the shipping lines can be identified if they need a boat or large no.
Fernandes said the problem is that the quality of the data that there is not good, because although it is correct must be mapped each of the fields of information, because the authorities removed what give businesses what has been traditionally its primary interest is the data import.
‘The importance of the country is not in the import, transshipment is: what goes in, what comes and where it goes. More than 90% of the volume of cargo we handle those 7 million TEUs we had in 2015 is burden that does not belong to the country ‘he said.
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ECONOMIC SECTOR
Container movement registered an increase of 1.77%
6.8 million TEUs were mobilized in 2015.
The biggest move was the port of Balboa, with 3.0 million TEUs.
Source: www.panamaamerica.com