Name: Port of Long Beach shipping picks up
Uploaded: 2014-04-09
Duration: 4 min 15 s
Description: Executive Director Dick Steinke says he is surprised imports and exports have increased 22% over the past 6 months.

I'm Colin Barr from Fortune. I'm here with **** Steinke, he's of the Port of Long Beach, and that's the largest, one of the largest, container ports in the United States. We've been talking about the, the economic situation and you guys have been surprised, I think, by how much, how quickly trade has picked up in the last, in the last year. Yeah, we, we're we are surprised. I think we're a pretty good barometer of, the economy, and for the last eight months, our, our trade has increased about 22 % coming through the Port of Long Beach. So it's, it's, some pretty robust numbers at, given the, the dismal year we had last year. One of the things that's, remarkable is that actually in terms of just the volume that you're dealing with, we're actually coming up on, on 2007 levels, which is something that you have said that you, you didn't think you'd get there for a few more years. Yeah very surprising again. I think a lot of the economists and a lot of the people that were doing, reviews on, where we were and where we were going would have predicted that it would have taken to 2012, 2013 to get us back up to 2007 levels. We're not quite there yet but, the recent trend shows that we're gonna get there sooner than, a lot of people predicted. Now that's an interesting point because, things are going pretty well, trade, obviously, is good. It creates all kinds of jobs throughout the economy. And yet you actually are not at a point where you're coming up on any kind of bottleneck, really, in terms of dealing with it. You have a lot of, I guess, you know, for coming years, assuming that things keep growing the way they are, you still have the ability to take on more, more volume. We do. I think most ports across the country have, significant latent capacity. And, and that, Long Beach is a, is a good example. I think we're probably at 60, 65 % capacity. But, what we wanna do now is build for the future. We don't wanna get ourselves in a position where, we're behind the curve. We wanna position ourselves for growth in the future. And I guess, in, to that end, you're in the middle of a, I guess a billion- dollar project that'll, that'll help you deal with, the expansion that you see coming in the next, next decade or two. Yeah, we've got several projects. One of our, our most important projects is replacing a, an old, bridge. It's called the Gerald Desmond Bridge. It's about a billion- dollar project. A financing package is almost completed and, we could be in construction about this time next year, so, we're looking forward to doing that, that work. The bridge isn't, big enough. It's not wide enough. About 15 % of the nation's cargo goes across that bridge. So it's a significant, national, asset and, and we need to keep sure that that bridge carries enough cargo in the future. And, I guess one of the issues that we'll be dealing with for years, coming years here is, is how our trade relationship with China goes. Obviously, China is a big, contributor to the volume that you guys have, and, you know both imports and exports. and, obviously, there's a lot of talk about that. I mean, tell me how you look at that, at that whole issue. Well, well, obviously, our growth over the past several years has been, a result of, of, increased, with, trade with China and then over 50 % of our imports are, are from, China, so it's a significant player. That relates to, directly into jobs for longshore workers and truck drivers and warehouse workers, everybody in the, in the goods movement industry. So to the extent that that trade, decreases it means a significant decrease in jobs, at our port, and other ports on the US west coast. And I, I guess that you are not, obviously, a, forecaster. You don't have a crystal ball with you. If, if you did we'd put it right here. But, I guess from what you've seen, September looks like it was a pretty good month, and you've, you know, you haven't seen anything that suggests to you that we're, we're facing anything. You know, but there's a lot of talk out there, a lot of, kind of, doom and gloom talk. I guess you've seen no sign of that from, from your perspective anyway. We haven't seen it yet. We don't have September numbers in. They, they seem to be trending the same way that, August was trending. so, you know, I think, later we get into the year, I think most of the retailers have already, brought in their cargo for the holiday season. Once we get to the new year, I think we'll have a better indication of how sustained this really is, we're obviously hoping for, the trend to keep going up and, time will tell how, and we don't have that crystal ball, and, and, but we're hoping for good things. Good, thanks for your help, ****. Thank you, Colin.

Executive Director Dick Steinke says he is surprised imports and exports have increased 22% over the past 6 months.