b'4American Journal of Transportation ajot.comECLAC outlines impacts of Covid pandemic on Latin American ocean shippingBy George Lauriat, AJOTThe Economic Commis- phenomenon, the impacts arenaventura, Colombia or Val-sionforLatinAmericaandnonetheless significant for theparaiso, Chile dropped 32.9% Caribbean (ECLAC) in theirregion. As the ECLAC reportand 28% respectively on the JulyreportTheeffectsofdetails,backin1992thirtyJanuary-Mayperiod2020. coronavirus disease (COVID- steamship lines accounted ofConversely,portslikethe 19)pandemiconinterna- 63%ofthecontainerfleet.BrazilianportsofSantos, tionaltradeandlogisticsShortlylater,in1998sixItapoaandParanagua,all outlinedthemyriadimpactsoceancarrierallianceswerepostedbetween7%-9% thatthepandemicinducedformedrepresentingaroundincreases during the January-recessionhashadonLatinhalf of the container fleet [inMay 2020 period. However, Americas supply chain. terms of TEUs]. By 2018 thethebigwinnersintermsof The pandemics economiccombinedmarketshareofincreaseinTEUswerethe impact [see article on page 2]the three alliances was nearlyportsofRosario,Argentina waswidespreadintheLAC70% of the TEU capacity and10.5%,BahiadeCartagena region. In some countries, thecurrentlythemarketshare11.7%,PanamaCaribbean demand for primary commod- has risen to 84.2%. Coast3terminals14% ity exports all but dried up asAsaresultoftheshift- and Panama Pacific Coast 2 manufacturinginChinaandingofoceancarriersched- Terminals 17.4%. Not unex-other parts of Asia, Europe andules[blanksailingsreducedpectedly,verticalintegrated US slowed to a crawl. Equally,schedules],duringthepan- terminalsfaredbetterthan importstotheregionfelloffdemic, Latin American portsconventionalterminals.The as the money tightened in theweredividedintohaveand(OUTLINEScontinued on region.Perhapslesstalkedhavenots.PortslikeBue- page 11) Two ships pass each other in the Panama Canal.aboutwasthedamagethat the complete shutdown of the tourist sector had on the LAC. Thereportnoted,Thesitua-tion [paralysis of tourism] is particularly worrying to Carib-bean countries, where tourism accounted for 45% of the total exports of goods and services in2019.Inthiscontext,the value of Caribbean exports of goods and services is expected to fall by 40% in 2020.Withabadlydamaged tourismindustryundercut-tingeconomicperformance in the Caribbean imports and exports to the region are simi-larly impacted.L AtinA meriCAns eAPortsLatinAmericasseaports, like virtually all seaports, were impacted by a drop in seaborne traffic. Although the report sug-gests there was a -6.1% year-on-yearchangeJanuary-May 2020 compared to 2019 % in containerizedtraffic,thevol-umes at the regions main box-ports were only marginally off (-1%).ECLACsurmisesthe differencebetweenthetwoFLORIDAS DISTRIBUTION HUBfigures is explained by the fact that other operational and trans-shipment movements offset thePORT TAMPA BAY & THE I-4 CORRIDORdropincontainerizedinterna-tional trade. AnotherkeyfindingwasDistribution Centersthat despite the drop-in con-Over 380 million square feet of distribution center space ORLANDOtainer volumes, shipping freight One of the hottest industrial real estate markets in the U.S PORTrates to the region increasedTAMPA comparedto2019.From Over 10 million square feet of additional DC capacity under development BAYthe end of April, rates began Global container connections with new Asia direct servicesto rise steadily, and by 2 July Expanding terminal facilities with plenty of room for growth2020 they were48% higher than the previous year. ThisYour last mile just got shorter.suggeststhatthe[containerWWW.PORTTB.COMshipping]industrywasable to manage supply [ship calls] thus achieve a price level that allowed it to partially offset the decline in demand caused by COVID-19.One of the dynamics influ-encingservicesandpricing intheLatinAmericancon-tainer trades is the concentra-tionofshippinginrelatively few hands. While this is not1101 CHANNELSIDE DRIVE, TAMPA, FLORIDA 33602exclusively a Latin American'