The time and cost of maritime routes between Costa Rica and China, and the capacity that the food industry develops to take advantage of existing opportunities, are factors that in the coming years will influence the evolution of the FTA signed between the two countries.
Ten years after the entry into force of the Free Trade Agreement between China and Costa Rica, Costa Rican authorities assure that they are in a continuous negotiation process involving the National Animal Health Service (Senasa) and the State Phytosanitary Service (SFE).
Due to the imbalance in world trade flows, shipping lines have changed their routes and prefer to move empty containers to Asia, a situation that generates shortages and causes increases in freight rates and raw material prices.
In this scenario of new commercial reality, the operating costs of maritime freight have been impacted, since due to the restrictions imposed in several countries around the world, containers have been stranded.
After the Quetzal Port Company of Guatemala and the Port of Chiapas, Mexico, signed an agreement for strategic commercial promotion, it is expected that in May the short sea route will begin to operate.
The potential offered by the Port of Chiapas as a logistic node for commercial exchange from and to Central America, as well as with other international markets, makes it a strategic place for the promotion of the Short Sea Shipping (SSS) project with Guatemala and eventually with other Mesoamerican countries, informed the Mexican Secretariat of Communications and Transport (SCT).
In Costa Rica, exporters insist that rates be renegotiated at the Moin Container Terminal, since currently the cost of moving a container at that terminal exceeds by about $207 what was paid at the Japdeva docks.
Because of the lower-than-projected volume of cargo shipped on the September and October services, the maritime route between Port Moin and Shanghai was suspended.
Costa Rican exporters are negotiating to change the frequency of the maritime route between Port Moin and Shanghai from monthly to weekly from February 2020.
Since mid-July, the main companies transporting maritime cargo from the Port of Santa Tomas in Guatemala stopped operating the direct route to Europe, which will raise between 20% and 25% the costs of imports and exports.
After six decades of keeping the direct route to European ports in operation, the main shipping companies departing from Puerto Santo Tomás de Castilla in Izabal such as Maersk, Hamburg Sud, MSC, CMA-CGM, Hapas Lloyd and Sea Trade, decided not to re-operate the route concerned, leaving only one company with a multipurpose transport ship as an option to move cargo to Europe.
The construction of an oil pipeline and a maritime terminal in the Pacific for the transfer and storage of fuels, are some of the projects planned to develop the state-owned Recope in the next eight years in Costa Rica.
The construction of a new plant for storage and sale of clean products in Liberia, and the polyduct connecting this plant with Barranca, is one of the large-scale projects that the Costa Rican Petroleum Refinery (Recope) plans to develop in the coming years.
Freight movement in Panama totaled 54.8 million metric tons in the first eight months of the year, 5% less than that reported in the same period in 2017.
The most recent figures of the General Comptroller detail that only last August reported a year-on-year fall of 13% in the freight movement, falling from 7.8 million metric tons in the eighth month of 2017 to 6.8 million metric tons in the same period of 2018.
From January to June a total of 161,000 TEUs were mobilized from Guatemalan ports to different US destinations, registering a slight year-on-year increase of 1%.
According to the "Logistics Monitor" prepared by the Guatemalan Association of Exporters (Agexport), Port Everglades in Florida prevails as the main cargo receiving port of Guatemala, with 15% of the total sent there up to June, followed by Wilmington in Delaware, with 13.4%, Gloucester in New Jersey with 9.5%, Gulfport in Mississippi, with 7.8% and Port Hueneme in California, with 7.6%.
In order to minimize some of the impact that the Nicaraguan crisis has had on intraregional trade, the governments of Costa Rica and El Salvador have announced that they are now in a position to start ferry operations.
After unsuccessfully trying to implement this maritime cargo transport option, in May of last year the Spanish shipping company Odiel decided to end the negotiation process to operate the ferry, due to a disagreement over the setting of tariffs that would have to be charged for the service. Since then, the project has been forgotten.
Only days after two shipping companies announced the partial suspension of their operations in Puerto Santo Tomás, authorities at the terminal reported that 90% of the Salvadoran cargo has been lost.
The president of Empresa Portuaria Santo Tomas de Castilla (Empornac), Bayron Monterrosa, explained that they have lost almost all of the cargo from El Salvador, which represented 20% of the port terminal's operations.
Due to lack of investment in machinery and equipment in recent years and slow loading and unloading of vessels, the shipping company Maersk Line is to partially suspend its operations in the Guatemalan port terminal.
Panama Ports Company has stated that due to the unfavorable trend registered by the national maritime industry, the company is carrying out organizational changes in order to continue operating.
From a statement issued by Panama Ports Company:
It is difficult for us to send this communication, faced with such a painful decision, against our will.
For the fiscal year ending September 2018, the authorities foresee that the cargo that will transit through the Canal will reach 431 million tons, 7% more than in the previous period.
According to the Panama Canal Authority, the main reasons for the predicted growth in cargo passing through its facilities are the improvement registered in international prices of raw materials and the increase in demand from emerging economies.