Source: http://worldcityweb.com/home/MIA/publications/magazine/25/599/

How China is reshaping Miami

by Ken Roberts

It was Chinese for lunch and dinner one day last week, and I’m not talking about the cuisine. I’m talking about the containers.

As in containers of cargo. Tens of thousands of them, packed with all sorts of inexpensive imports looking for land. They’re double- and triple-parked in the Pacific these days, and are now finding their way through the Panama Canal to Miami and up the Eastern Seaboard.

Lunch that day was the conclusion of a U.S. Chamber of Commerce-led event, the third it has hosted on a six-city swing across the nation. Sponsored by FedEx and hosted by the Miami Free Zone, the Miami event’s focus was the impact of China here. I was one of the panelists because of WorldCity’s ability to speak of that impact. It’s one we have been writing about for several years now.

South Florida now imports more from China than every other nation except Brazil, a truly amazing development, given our reputation as the Gateway to Latin America. China is, in fact, ranked first with 10 U.S. Customs districts, second with 12 and third with another four.

Dinner that evening was with the Florida Customs Brokers and Forwarders Association, an organization that represents its constituency as well as any in town. The sponsor at the monthly meeting was the Port of Miami Terminal Operating Company, which is charged with on-loading and off-loading cargo for 31 lines that sail to the port. But it appeared to be more of a lynching at times, as the forwarders, Customs brokers and truckers pointedly lamented POMTOC and port procedures that cost time and money.

The issues are many, complicated and multifaceted, a subject we will tackle in a future issue, but one of the more interesting comments came from POMTOC’s Chris Morton.

“We’re not a port for South America anymore,” he said. “Most of our containers are coming from China.”

While certainly hyperbolic, the statement is nothing short of astonishing nonetheless. The multinational community in South Florida, the 800-plus Latin America headquarters based here, and the community leadership would do well to take note.

Because Miami became the Gateway to Latin America not because of the Fortune 500 companies that set up shop here. No, Miami became the Gateway to Latin America because of the mom-and-pop freight forwarders and Customs brokers, the entrepreneurial warehouse owners, the middle-man brokers known as NVOCCs, the one-ship “lines” and the shippers with friends and friends to make in points south.

The multinationals came later. The international banks came later. The globally focused law firms came later.

At my table that evening was Jorge De Tuya, whose Cuban grandfather and father are among the pioneers who helped create the modern-day Miami. Today, Jorge is an attorney, still in the trade arena, but an attorney nonetheless. Your fingernails stay cleaner, your hands less calloused. His father and grandfather sold the family business years ago, fulfilling the American dream.

But what is happening, what is causing some challenges for POMTOC, is Asian trade that is growing faster than Latin American trade. Given that Chinese trade is largely import trade, that means empty containers sit at the port. So while the good news is that POMTOC reached its goal of 500,000 “containers” last year, four years ahead of schedule, the bad news is congestion.

But what it will ultimately mean for South Florida will be more Asian companies, particularly from China and Hong Kong, Singapore, Vietnam and Korea. And Asian banks. And law firms focused on Asia. And consultants. Miami will not only be an entry point into the United States but will also allow the Chinese access to Latin America, an increasingly important market.

It is the next step for South Florida on its journey to becoming a true world city. It is one the Customs brokers and others have embraced to the tune of more than $1 billion in imports annually from China alone.

So it’s more than just lunch or dinner conversation when China’s central bank decides to raise interest rates as it did last week for the first time in a decade, an attempt to slow torrid growth. It’s a move that might just come ashore in Miami.