Tampa shippers make their case
Executive Shippers' Council seeks direct ocean services
Ralph Kluesner thinks his ocean shipping needs are a little more costly and complicated than they should be for a man whose company is located in a city with a deepwater seaport.
Kluesner is the manager of Tampa-based Electric Supply Inc., which provides everything from wooden poles to power transformers and cable to utility companies throughout the Caribbean and Latin America. He can ship product to customers in Belize, Honduras and the Cayman Islands from Tampa. But customers in Bermuda get their supplies via the Port of Fernandina. Some Caribbean customers get product shipped from Jacksonville, while other customers in the Caribbean, Central America and South America get shipments primarily from Miami.
Although not everything he sells is sourced initially from Tampa'poles and transformers are sent directly from suppliers to the port of departure'a substantial amount of the electrical supplies are sent to a Tampa warehouse, then loaded into containers before being shipped to Florida's Atlantic Coast ports. The extra cost for trucking is generally about $800.
That is why Kluesner was one of the early supporters of the Executive Shippers' Council, a group of companies within about 100 miles of Tampa that works with the Port of Tampa to get more steamship lines to provide service from Tampa.
The main goal is to get ocean carriers to start making direct calls at Tampa. But the council also wants carriers that don't offer direct calls to provide shippers relief with compromise service improvements, such as opening receiving stations in Tampa and absorbing some of the inland intermodal costs.
Jim Pyburn, the Port of Tampa's director of trade development and Latin America, helped start the Executive Shippers' Council in May 2002, with five local companies that shipped around 17,500 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) of containerized cargo a year.
'Since then, it's kind of taken on a life of its own. There's a lot of interest,' Pyburn says.
There are now 108 members that ship a combined total of 190,000 TEUs a year. The council includes importers, exporters, and companies that do some of each. The membership includes major companies like Disney, Pepsico, Tyson Foods, and Rooms to Go, as well as a mix of mid-sized and smaller local operations.
The council is an informal group, with meetings held on a quarterly basis and members attending based on their wants and needs at a given time. The meetings include representatives from the port, as well as representatives from the various Florida offices of shipping lines, who will travel to Tampa just to stay in touch with such a gathering of shippers.
In addition to meetings, the council works in cooperation with the Greater Tampa Chamber of Commerce and officials from the City of Tampa. That cooperation includes standard trade promotion efforts, as well as more involved activities like trade missions to other countries.
'It's certainly helpful to do some of the joint marketing,' Kluesner remarked. 'If you go on a trade mission that involves joint marketing, it's cheaper than if I tried to do it myself.'
But the activity that may me most beneficial in the long run is the technique the Port of Tampa uses when pitching prospective steamship lines.
Pyburn said that when representatives from liner carriers come to Tampa, the port is able to bring in members of the shippers' council, providing the carriers face-to-face contact with potential customers.
'We bring business to them,' Pyburn explained. 'These businesses tell the lines that they are very, very interested in finding ways of cutting their costs. For some of these high-volume shippers, we're talking about substantial savings with a direct call.'
The greatest success story to date has been the combined effort that brought Zim Integrated Shipping's Asia-Gulf Express (AGX) service to Tampa this summer. The service has a port rotation Shanghai, Ningbo, Pusan, Colon, Kingston, Tampa, Mobile, Houston, Kingston and Shanghai. Zim also has a vessel-sharing agreement with Emirates Shipping Line on the service. Emirates is a highly regarded 2006 start-up carrier with headquarters in both Dubai and Hong Kong.
The port authority's investments in the new Hooker's Point Container Terminal, the acquisition of three gantry cranes, and the addition of P&O Ports North America as the port's new terminal operator have positioned Tampa for growth in the container sector, port officials note. But they also credit the role of the shippers' council in attracting the service to Tampa.
When the service commenced, Tom Keen, Zim's senior vice president sales and marketing, credited the response from the shipper community.
'The response from importers and exporters to the launch of the AGX has been phenomenal, and exceeded our expectations,' he said. 'We see great opportunities for growth in Tampa.'
Henry Jimenez, the director of international services for International Food Group, which supplies systems foods to the booming quick service restaurant market in China, said his company has put together a 'nice package' on the AGX service, shipping direct from Tampa to Shanghai. With the new Asia service, he noted, IFG can cut down on outbound services provided across the country in Southern California.
He said the service is undoubtedly 'a godsend' for higher-volume importers, as well, and predicted that if the Cuba market eventually opens up for trade with the U.S., Tampa will be an important gateway.
Ali Hosein, the vice president of merchandizing and ocean freight for Rooms to Go, said the direct call at Tampa has simplified deliveries in the Central Florida area.
He said Rooms to Go brought in 75 containers in the first five or six weeks the service was available, part of the 48,000 TEUs the company imports for all its stores each year.
'With the direct call the ship is minutes from our warehouse, compared to what we have to go through if we use Miami or even Savannah,' he said. The service save the company money, he said. But even more important to him is the reduced transit time and improved reliability for deliveries.
Shippers' council members hope the AGX service is just the start of more direct calls by intercontinental shipping lines.
'We understand this is still small, but it will grow,' Hosein commented. 'Our goal is to work with the port authority any way we can as long as it is in out interest.'
That was pretty much the consensus. Shippers said that as long as the rates and service are competitive, they have told carriers they would opt for lines making a direct call at Tampa.
'We've had some great accomplishments,' Kluesner said. 'But we're not nearly where we want to be. There's strength in numbers, and the more we achieve, the more people will want to jump on the wagon.'
He said the group will continue to lobby the carriers.
'If we can't get them to offer direct service in their different lanes, maybe we can get them to open up a loading warehouse in Tampa,' he commented. 'We want to work as a group to get more product moving through Tampa.'
Pyburn, who has been in Tampa since 2000 after working on the other side of the state, said he is confident more carriers will be coming to Tampa.
It makes sense to shippers in Tampa, and as far away as Clearwater, Dade City, Orlando and Sarasota, he observed. He also thinks that growing trade volumes will begin to strain the state's port infrastructure in the years ahead. Tampa has more room to grow that Miami or Port Everglades, he said, adding 'There's only so much room on I-95.'
Tampa is at a crossroads, he believes, and with more carriers serving the eastern U.S. via all-water services through the Panama Canal, it is in a good position to attract new business.
'People ask me why I came to Tampa,' he said. 'I tell them 'That's the future.''
