Santo Domingo.- "Imagine the Caribbean route as asupermarket aisle. When I used to take my son to the aisle where the cereals werethere were usually two cereals; Now that I have my grandson, there are 10,000 brandsof cereal. Imagine that every box of cereal is one of the port terminals in theCaribbean, how can we make the shipping lines choose our cereal box?" saidCarlos Urriola to launch the conference "The Panama Canal expansion: Impacton the Caribbean ports."
As reported by diariolibre.com, the maritime expert fromPanama said in the wake of the Panama Canal’s expansion in June all Caribbean portsincluding Dominican Republic’s face two challenges.
“On the one hand, to receive much larger ships they musthave greater infrastructure. On the other – and more importantly you must havecustoms processes and expeditious and flexible movement of cargo and offer moreservices than the competition, creating added value for that freight to come toyour country," he said.
When Dominican Republic Shippers Association (ANRD) presidentTeddy Heinsen noted that the country has the necessary infrastructure, Urriola agreed,but stressed that the country should work on processes to move the freightquickly.
Urriola, vice president of Panama’s ManzanilloInternational Terminal and twice president of Panama’s Maritime Chamber suggestedlooking at what other countries do, and do what the competition doesn’t. “Butthis should be done jointly between the private sector and the government, itshould be a national project.”
According to Heinsen Dominican Republic’s maritime importsrose as high as 7% and exports climbed as much as 3% thus far this year.