WorldCity Business Magazine

President's note: The rest of the Story

by Ken Roberts

At WORLDCITY, we believe that behind every great trade statistic is a great trade story.

For the last eight years, we have been telling those stories in trade reports in WORLDCITY magazine as well as in our annual publications like Miami TradeNumbers and TradeAmericas, which we will be publishing later this month.

This month, our magazine spotlights South Florida’s trade for the first six months of the year how it is doing with the rest of the world and what direction it is headed. But this month’s report contains an added twist: Editor Mary Dempsey and Staff Writer Claudio Mendona have examined a new layer of statistics that deepen our understanding of trade in the Miami Customs District.

For the first time, we are breaking out cargo statistics by individual airports and seaports. As a result, we found that through the first six months of the year, Miami International Airport handled more imports from Colombia than Brazil, the traditional No. 1 trade partner. We also discovered that while China recently passed Brazil as South Florida’s most important import partner “Made in China” was our June cover story China has been the Port of Miami’s top import partner for years.

The story at Port Everglades is Venezuela. Last year, Honduras was the port’s top partner for imports. But for the first six months of 2006 it was oil-rich Venezuela and anyone who has pumped gasoline recently knows why. At the Port of Palm Beach, meanwhile, the Dominican Republic was the top player on the import side, despite a 40 percent decrease since 2003. The Dominican Republic was once the port’s top trade partner on the export side, too, a position now held by the Bahamas.

Our trade report focuses on the dollar value of imports and exports, but over time we will look at tonnage, top trading partners and individual imports and exports. This deeper level of detail will also surface at our next TradeLinks, our quarterly importexport event series. To learn more about TradeLinks or register for the Sept. 13 briefing, log on to www.worldcityweb.com.

Contact: kroberts@worldcityweb.com