The Port of Los Angeles is Ready To Compete in The Future
The Port of Los Angeles is the busiest container port in the United States and is hoping it’s going to stay that way after the Panama Canal expansion opens in 2015. It currently ranks in the top 20 in the world for container ports by volume but will be under some increasing competition once the giant new container ships are able to pass through the Panama Canal’s new bigger third lock and thereby gaining greater access to major ports on the east coast of the country.
To ensure they are ready to compete effectively, the port has made huge investments and just recently completed a $370 million channel deepening project that was essential in order to handle even the most gigantic of the new container vessels. Antonio Villaraigosa, Mayor of Los Angeles stated, “This project was important to us because we understand that in order to compete with ports in the United States and around the world, we’ve got to make investments.” He continued, “And we’ve made US$1.3 billion in investments and some 20,000 jobs to make sure we’re competitive.”
While the port of Los Angeles does it’s best to upgrade to more state-of-the-art facilities, ports on the east coast are also doing their best to dredge their waterways and modernize their ports but have been facing some difficult financial and environmental challenges in order to do so. Ports in Florida, Georgia and South Carolina all recognize the golden economic opportunities once the Panama Canal expansion is complete, but their progress to be able to capitalize on it has been slowed somewhat due to a lack of Federal investment dollars to date. These eastern regions still remain hopeful nonetheless and continue to prepare with the necessary infrastructure improvements needed to compete effectively in the future.
Back on the west coast in Los Angeles, it appears their port is ready now to handle whatever size ship comes their way. They knew what they had to do as far back as 10 years ago when the dredging to deepen the channel first began. The region’s officials certainly made the right investment in their future when they needed to in the past and it paid off over the years by creating thousands of jobs that have contributed tens of millions of dollars into the local economy. Investing is all about enjoying a great investing experience and it appears as though the Port of Los Angeles’s investments will pay off well into the future, as they do their best to remain the country’s busiest container port.
Up until recently, the West coast has been the main beneficiary of the bigger cargo ships from Asia. Now with the expansion of the Panama Canal allowing for larger vessels to pass through, it creates enormous opportunities for ports on the East coast of the United States, allowing them to finally be able to effectively compete with the West coast ports; for more business from the eastern parts of the world. One eastern region in particular, Florida, is quite confident it will be ready to compete, when the time comes.
It looks like New Zealand doesn’t want to miss out on the opportunity to capitalize on the new global economy of the future. The Port of Tauranga, the country’s largest, just opened it’s new expansion of the port and is looking forward to the benefits that will come as a result of all the upgrading. Although there still is some more dredging work to be done to widen and deepen the Tauranga Harbor shipping channels, the project is expected to begin in late 2013. Among the improvements made was a $30 million extension to the terminal’s wharf length, increasing it by 170 meters as well as the installation of a new Super-Post Panamax gantry crane that brings the total number of Terminal container cranes to six. These improvements will allow for larger container vessels to dock and ensure that New Zealand remains in a strong competitive position, moving forward into the future.