WorldCity Business Magazine

Fuel, flight and fish

by Mary Dempsey

U.S. energy dependence, first trade effects of Hurricane Katrina are reflected in third-quarter trade figures.

U.S. dependency on foreign energy supplies, a new push to re-establish the strength of the airline industry and the toll taken by Hurricane Katrina were all in evidence in Miami import figures for the first nine months of 2005.

South Florida imported $23.3 billion in goods from January to September, a jump of $2.4 billion or nearly 12 percent when compared to the same period in 2004. Non-crude petroleum imports continued to hold the No. 1 spot among imports, doubling from $2 billion in the first nine months of the year, compared to $984 million a year earlier. Most of the increase stems from the rising value of oil on world markets.

Nearly all the fuel was gasoline which entered the country through Port Everglades.

Fuel has edged out aircraft as the most valuable import to South Florida, with the value of plane and jet shipments falling 11 percent to $1.5 billion. But imports of parts for regional jets have swelled dramatically. In the first three quarters of the year, they rose 60 percent to $229 million and became Miami’s No. 22 import product. In 2004, regional-jet parts sat in the No. 33 spot.

Hurricane Katrina’s effect on trade began to surface in WorldCity’s latest analysis of government trade statistics. Through September, shipments out of New Orleans were down nearly 10 percent and the Customs district had a $46.2 billion trade deficit, compared to a $29.4 billion deficit in the same period of 2004. Overall, the nation’s fifth most important Customs district posted $94.4 billion in trade in the first nine months of the year.

It was the hurricane’s devastation of Gulf Coast fishing industries, particularly the shrimp industry, that has most affected Miami’s trade. Gulf Coast fisheries traditionally have produced 10 percent of the shrimp and 40 percent of the oysters consumed in the United States. A huge swath of fishing operations and seafood processing facilities were lost in the storm. The oyster harvest from the region has come to a standstill: Where fishing operations weren’t destroyed, post-hurricane pollution is so bad that oyster harvesting has been banned. Meanwhile, since shrimp trawling is fuel consumptive, some shrimp operations that survived the hurricane are no longer economical at a time when fuel prices are on the rise.

Imports have filled the gap left by downturn in domestic output. countries in the Caribbean and Latin America are benefiting. In particular, shrimp, lobster and other prepared fish and shellfish count among the top U.S. imports from Panama; last year those shipments valued $8.9 million.

South Florida imports of shrimp, crabs, lobsters and other seafood, both prepared and preserved, rose 82 percent to value $151 million. Fresh fish imports rose 9 percent to $161 million.

Miami imports of cell phones and cell-phone parts were also up, jumping 35 percent in value to hit $742 million.

Although Miami imports increased in the first nine months of the year, it remains one of only four of the top 15 Customs districts to consistently post a trade surplus and the district with the second-largest surplus. Detroit, the nation’s third largest Customs district, had a $2.7 billion surplus for the first nine months of the year, followed by Miami, with a $651 million surplus.