WorldCity Business Magazine

Trading places

by Mary Dempsey

When it comes to Miami’s Top 100 trade partners, ups and downs can come from unexpected places. Certainly, there are the solid players, like Brazil, that spend years hanging resolutely to the same spot on the roster. In the case of South America’s biggest country and largest economy, that means the No. 1 position.

And then there are the countries like Venezuela, which made an unexpected challenge to the top of the list in the first six months of 2005. Thanks to the zooming price of petroleum products on world markets, that OPEC country has pushed to the third highest place on the trade list, marking the first time since 1997 that it has ranked so high. And it may not be content to stay in the No. 3 spot. It’s already nudging close up to Miami’s second most important trade partner, the Dominican Republic.

When it comes to losing ground, Costa Rica saw the biggest change among Miami’s Top 10 trade partners, dropping two steps to the No. 5 spot.

Attention frequently goes to the top of the chart, but the biggest shifts often come from unexpected corners. In the first half of the year, Belarus climbed up the greatest number of places on Miami’s trade-partner list, advancing 94 spots to the 90th position thanks to a 7,000 percent increase in trade with South Florida.

Although exports from Miami to Belarus grew more than 1,000 percent, the bulk of the increase in trade came behind Miami imports from the former Soviet republic. They swelled to almost $7.6 million from less than $91,000 the year before. Vladimir Mironovich, head of the economic section at the Belarus Embassy in Washington, D.C., says shipments of metal products were the reason.

“We have a growing metal processing industry. We sell and export different types of metal products, steel bars and such,” Mironovich says. “In Miami, we even have a representative from the Belarusian steelworks enterprise.”

Looking at geographic regions, some of the most notable shifts came in Africa. South Africa, which had been Miami’s No. 39 trade partner in 2004, saw overall trade with South Florida fall 45 percent to reach less than $54 million. Much of the falloff came as a result of a 64 percent decline in its cargo shipments to South Florida. South Africa now ranks No. 58 among the Miami’s top trade partners.

Kenya, Nigeria and Namibia also posted trade declines. But a big leap was registered by Chad, which did more than $20 million in trade with South Florida an increase of more than 1,000 percent and rose 44 places to become Miami’s 74th most important trading partner. In late 2003, with a new oil pipeline completed, Chad began exporting petroleum to the United States. South Florida’s exports to the African nation plummeted for the first half of the year, falling more than 77 percent to a mere $15,000.

Among trade partners in the Top 100, the biggest plunge was registered by Bulgaria, the former Soviet republic that is seeking membership in the European Union. It fell to No. 98 after holding the 72nd spot in 2004. Overall trade between Bulgaria and Miami tumbled more than 72 percent to end at $5 million, compared to nearly $19 million during the same six-month period last year. The country posted GDP growth of 5.6 percent last year but it is expected to end 2005 below 5 percent. Exports from Miami to Bulgaria fell nearly 29 percent while Miami’s imports from Bulgaria dropped almost 76 percent. Bulgaria has been in limbo since late June when a parliamentary election failed to produce a clear majority and a coalition government started to form.