The Florida/Mexico Working Group hosted its first meeting this week ahead
of the U.S.-Mexico- Canada Free Trade Agreement going into effect today
This week, the Florida Ports Council (FPC) and the Coordination of Ports and Merchant Marine (Coordinadora de Puertos) facilitated the initial meeting of a Florida/Mexico Working Group, formed to review and identify issues, opportunities, and challenges to enhance the flow of international commerce via all-water routes. This meeting is timely as it comes ahead of the new United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) going into effect today, July 1st.
The Florida/Mexico Working Group was developed as a result of a Letter of Intent (LOI) signed by FPC and the Coordinadora de Puertos in November. LOI participants pledged to create a working group of twelve maritime commerce members* from Mexico and Florida to grow maritime trade between the two entities.
“Mexico has long been one of Florida’s strongest trading partners, but we see substantial opportunities for growth in bilateral waterborne trade,” said Doug Wheeler, president and CEO of the Florida Ports Council. “The Letter of Intent that was signed in November by Florida and the Mexican gulf ports was just the first step in this process, and the meeting of the working group this week furthered our commitment to pursue benefits and solutions an all-water route will provide.”
In July 2019, delegation members from FPC, Enterprise Florida and World Trade Center Miami traveled to Mexico City to promote the all-water trade route through Florida. Of Florida’s 15 deep-water seaports, eight sent representatives to Mexico, including those from Port Canaveral, JAXPORT, Port Manatee, PortMiami, Port Panama City, the Port of Pensacola, Port Everglades and Port Tampa Bay. FPC coordinated with Jonathan Chiat Auerbach, the Consul General of Mexico in Miami, and Enterprise Florida’s Mexico City office to schedule meetings for the delegation with government officials and agencies, customs officials and the Coordinadora de Puertos.
In November, the Mexican delegation traveled to Miami where the LOI was signed.
Héctor López Gutiérrez, Coordinador General de Puertos y Marina Mercante said, “For Mexico, sea routes including cabotage service and short-distance navigation are very important … for the ports of Florida and Central America, with which we have already started a new route, a very important panorama of development of intermodal chains has opened up and is convenient for all the countries that are involved; and it helps to solve many of the problems that currently appear in the mentioned chains. So I hope that the integration of the working group and the participation of the ports and agencies that participate will make it a very successful project, we could even say exemplary, in regard to national and international trade.”
“The establishment of the working group, proposed in the Letter of Intent signed by the Merchant Marine and the Florida Ports Council last November, is an example of the commitment and interest of both parties to make this relationship an axis of trade and investment between Mexico and the United States,” said Jonathan Chiat Auerbach, the Consul General of Mexico in Miami. “The selection of the participants in the working group integrally represents the commercial potential between Mexico and Florida. Undoubtedly, taking advantage of the existing maritime border between both entities will bring with it an important benefit to the well-being of the people of both countries, and particularly in Mexico, the south-southeast region of the country.”
About the Working Group
Working Group members include Juan Kuryla, Port Director & CEO of PortMiami; Alice Ancona, Senior Vice President & COO of the World Trade Center – Miami; Carlos Buqueras, Executive Director of Port Manatee; Alberto Cabrera, Director of Cruise and Cargo Development at JAXPORT; Alex King, Operations Manager of the Port of Panama City; Elena O. Asturias, Licensed Customs Broker and Owner of 305 Cargo Services; Alberto Azcona Gallardo, Deputy Director General of Priority Maritime Port Projects of the SCT; Karina Venizelos Toledo, Central Administrator of Customs Services and International Affairs of the SAT; Leonardo Gómez Vargas, General Director of the National Association of Private Transport (ANTP); Juan Díaz Mazadiego, General Director of Commercial Facilitation and Foreign Trade of the Ministry of Economy; Gerardo Tajonar Castro, President of the National Association of Importers and Exporters of the Mexican Republic (ANIERM); Felipe de Jesús Peña Dueñas, President of the Transportation Commission of the Confederation of Industrial Chambers of the United Mexican States (CONCAMIN); and Fernandez Perroni, General Director of the Merchant Marine of the SCT.
About the Florida Ports Council
The Florida Ports Council is the professional association of Florida’s public seaports, providing advocacy, leadership and research on seaport-related issues before state and federal government. Florida’s ports support nearly 900,000 jobs in the state and contribute $117.6 billion to the state’s economy each year. For more information, visit www.flaports.org.
