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<div class="phx-topic abstract-wrapper">Less than 24 hours after West Coast ports reopened following the 10-day lockout of longshoremen, a H</div>

Less than 24 hours after West Coast ports reopened following the 10-day lockout of longshoremen, a H

<div class="phx-topic">Less than 24 hours after West Coast ports reopened following the 10-day lockout of longshoremen, a Hyundai Merchant Marine ship unloaded 400 containers in Long Beach that were intended for Oakland and Tacoma. It was the first of what would become a major logistical headache.Since the lockout ended on Oct. 9, thousands of containers continue to be stacked up where they shouldn't be, forcing shippers to hastily arrange truck or rail transportation to the proper port or final destination.The backup has generated proposals that containers be relocated by coastwise ships or barges. Tempting as the solution sounds, it's easier said than done. The reason is the Jones Act, the 1920 law that prohibits the movement of cargo between U.S. ports by foreign-owned, foreign-flag ships.Most ships calling West Coast ports are foreign-flag vessels. Hyundai's vessels fall into that category. The South Korean carrier sought temporary relief from the Jones Act so it could load the stranded containers on another one of its vessels to move them to their intended port. Although the Jones Act is administered by the Maritime Administration, it is enforced by Customs. Hyundai asked Customs to issue an "administrative non-enforcement order" - in effect, a legal sanction for Customs officials to look the other way.While a Jones Act waiver and an administrative non-enforcement order appear to be effectively the same to the layman, there's a distinction, said Larry Burton, an attorney with Customs' Office of Regulation and Rulings. Under a 1950 law, waivers are allowed only for purposes of national defense, and Customs has to have the assent of the secretary of defense to do it. Customs can issue the administrative order on its own volition.After Hyundai requested a non-enforcement order, other carriers waiting at anchorage off Los Angeles and Long Beach quickly followed suit. The Japanese government also requested the waiver on behalf of its nation's carriers. On Oct. 11, Customs was willing to issue a blanket non-enforcement order under emergency conditions after the lockout ended. Marad objected, and after discussions between Maritime Administrator William G. Schubert and Customs Deputy Commissioner Douglas Browning, Customs agreed to scale back.Customs said that if a foreign-flag ship unloaded cargo on a West Coast dock as an emergency before the lockout began, a ship of the same company could move stranded containers to their destination. But Customs said that if the ship arrived after the lockout, where a carrier landed its cargo was "a commercial decision.""The Maritime Administration does not believe that these current circumstances meet the definition of the interest of national defense, and hereby requests that the Customs Service instruct all of its personnel to enforce the provisions of the Jones Act," Schubert wrote in an Oct. 9 letter to Customs Commissioner Robert C. Bonner."The Maritime Administration is carefully evaluating all potential alternatives that would alleviate congestion in the ports, and expedite the delivery of cargo to its final destination," Schubert said. "We would strongly encourage all non-Jones Act qualified carriers to consider utilizing the available domestic carriers for this purpose."Schubert said Marad objected to a wholesale non-enforcement order because it would not alleviate congestion, and it would do nothing to speed cargo to shippers, which in many cases are arranging transportation of the stranded containers on their own. Since the lockout, ships have laid at anchor, waiting to get into West Coast ports. Stranded containers loaded onto a coastwise ship would be subject to another wait outside port, causing further delays.Schubert also cited another reason: There was Jones Act tonnage available to fill the need for coastwise transportation. "We determined there were domestic shipping assets available, and accessible to underutilized ports." He said ships and tug-barge combinations were available, and that shallow-draft barges would be able use port facilities that larger ships could not enter. "Our position was not arbitrary or capricious," Schubert said.On Oct. 23, the National Industrial Transportation League weighed in, asking that Customs waive the Jones Act for 90 days. Edward M. Emmett, the NIT League's president, said the waiver was justified by national-defense interests and the threat to the economy. "President Bush himself proclaimed that the employee lockout at West Coast ports 'threatens our national defense,' in announcing his decision to invoke the Taft-Hartley Act" to reopen the ports, Emmett told Customs.Jones Act defenders, led by domestic carriers and seafaring unions, are having none of it. They denounced the NIT League's request as an effort to undermine the law, which has been subjected to repeated attacks as a protectionist relic. "Instead of assisting in the national defense, a waiver of the Jones Act would be detrimental to the interests of national defense and might seriously increase the risk to national security," said Gunnar Lundeberg, president of the Sailors' Union of the Pacific. He said ships used by foreign carriers "typically fly flags of convenience. This notorious system facilitates secret ownership, has been repeatedly connected to terrorist activity, and is known to transport weapons."NIT League officials deny any negative intent. "Our effort is not intended to alter the act in any way, shape or form," said Peter Gatti, the NIT League's vice president for international policy. "We are not trying to undermine the Jones Act. We're trying to help a small number of shippers get around some obstacles."Gatti said shippers "are pretty powerless when their freight is caught in the pipeline." Securing transportation on a Jones Act-qualified vessel is difficult, and time-consuming, he said. "We're talking about shippers with five or 10 boxes. They're not going to get a whole ship."No one seems to know exactly how many containers have been dropped off at the wrong port. The number probably changes quickly, as shippers arrange land transportation for some containers, while new ones land on the waterfront.Paul Stevens, executive vice president of Matson Navigation, the dominant carrier in the trade between the U.S. West Coast and Hawaii, said moving a container by water between Los Angeles and Oakland costs about $1,000, compared with $800 to $1,000 by truck, said."I'm trucking freight between Oakland and Los Angeles. It's available, but it's not free," Stevens said. Matson has provided coastwise service for years between Seattle and Oakland. It saves foreign carriers a U.S. call. However, the company does not have direct service between northern ports and Los Angeles-Long Beach.Stevens said he's received a few inquiries from foreign carriers about shuttling containers. "The $64 million question is whether or not they want to pay the money," he said. Even if there are a few hundred containers involved, a ship chartered and loaded for a voyage from Oakland to Los Angeles still would have to wait in a queue behind a few dozen other ships to unload. Per-diem charter would accrue while the ship rode at anchor.John McCown, chief executive of Trailer Bridge, which operates between Jacksonville and Puerto Rico, said the use of small tug-barges would help relieve congestion. He said Trailer Bridge has three container-carrying barges laid up. It would take six or eight weeks to deploy them to the West Coast, but "nobody has approached us." </div>

Ready, willing and able

<div class="phx-topic abstract-wrapper">When trans-Pacific carriers announced proposed rate increases for westbound shipments, U.S. exporter</div>

When trans-Pacific carriers announced proposed rate increases for westbound shipments, U.S. exporter

<div class="phx-topic">When trans-Pacific carriers announced proposed rate increases for westbound shipments, U.S. exporters surprised the lines by offering virtually no resistance.Shipping lines intend to raise their rates on refrigerated cargoes by $600 per FEU by April 1. Bob Weiss, an independent administrator of the Food Shippers Association, based in Bellevue, Wash., said his members are willing to accept an increase. "As long as everybody pays the same amount, that's OK," Weiss said.Shippers of wastepaper face a $200 general rate increase even earlier, on Nov. 1, and they aren't squawking either. "As long as demand is strong, we can pass the increase on to our overseas customers," said Jerry Lucey, division manager at Paper Tigers in Richmond, Calif. He said pent-up demand in Asia has resulted from the West Coast port shutdown.But shippers' acceptance of the increases and carriers' need for them may not be enough for the lines to get everything they want. In the past, carriers have cut rates without being asked. What usually happens is that a carrier will cut rates to attract cargo it needs to reposition containers to Asia or merely to fill empty space. The word quickly gets out, and other lines lower their rates to maintain market share.For many shippers, this cycle of rate-cutting is more destructive than a general rate increase that all exporters in the trade must pay. With westbound rates at or near all-time lows, most shippers recognize that carriers can't survive if they continue to charge rates that don't even cover the cost of loading a container aboard a ship and carrying it back to Asia.Most shippers say they're more interested in dealing with carriers that are financially sound and committed to the trade than in seeing the lines engage in a rate war that could drive weaker carriers into bankruptcy. Shippers also want to know that their rates will remain steady for the duration of the contract, so that the sales they make today will move at the quoted rate six months later. Most of all, they want to know that competitors who export the same products and volumes are not getting better deals.The export trade from the U.S. to Asia has been subsidized for years by the more prosperous eastbound trade, which itself has produced huge losses for carriers. U.S. exports to Asia are dominated by low-value U.S. exports such as wastepaper and agricultural products. These low-rated cargoes can't bear the rates that carriers are able to charge for the higher-value consumer goods that the U.S. imports from Asia.In good times, shipping lines charged $3,000 or more to carry a 40-foot container of electronic goods to the West Coast, but only $500 to $600 to carry a container of wastepaper to Hong Kong or Japan.In recent years, though, carriers built too much capacity even for the eastbound trade, and rates on imports from Asia have dropped dramatically. Therefore, carriers can no longer afford to subsidize the westbound trade with their eastbound rates - especially since eastbound rates also have dropped, to an average of $1,500 to $1,800 per FEU.Shipping lines build vessels for the eastbound trade, where they not only get higher revenue but they also achieve much better utilization of their ships. Eastbound vessels normally operate at more than 70 percent of capacity in the slack winter months, and during the peak shipping season, they are full. The same vessels return to Asia with a capacity utilization in the low 60 percent range.The recent announcements of rate increases came from the Westbound Transpacific Stabilization Agreement, whose 12 member lines have antitrust immunity to discuss rates and establish voluntary guidelines for members. WTSA members are free to charge whatever rates they want in their confidential contract negotiations withshippers.In announcing proposed general rate increases of $200 per FEU on dry cargoes and $600 per FEU on refrigerated cargoes, the WTSA did not cite space shortages on vessels as the reason for the increase. "It's really about the need for revenue," said Niels Erich, spokesman for the WTSA.In recent years, the WTSA guidelines have rarely held up. Last spring, for example, the carriers announced their intentions to raise rates on apples and citrus - refrigerated commodities for which rates are among the highest in the trade. Instead of increasing, rates actually fell slightly below their former levels, Weiss said. Freight rates on apples are now about $1,800 to $1,900 per FEU.Freight rates on cotton, a lower-rated dry commodity, have broken psychologically important barriers - $400 per FEU to Thailand and $500 to Indonesia. Rates to those distant destinations used to be over $2,000. On the heavily traveled trade lanes to Taiwan, Japan and South Korea, cotton rates have been in the $350 to $450 range. The WTSA announced a $200 general rate increase on cotton to take effect Dec. 1.Some exporters say the WTSA will have little more success with its recently announced increases. Blue Diamond, a California-based almond exporter, signed its annual contracts in August. "There was no increase," said Jil Morley, Blue Diamond's supply- chain manager.The WTSA's proposed rate increases would produce substantial percentage increases for some commodities. Freight rates on wastepaper exports to some destinations have fallen to $250 or lower, so the $200 GRI would translate to an increase of almost 100 percent. But as Erich pointed out, "When rates are that low, talking about a percentage increase is meaningless." </div>

Westbound carriers try again

<div class="phx-topic abstract-wrapper">Edward M.</div>

<div class="phx-topic">Edward M. Emmett, president of the National Industrial Transportation League, the nation's oldest and largest shippers association, met with The Journal of Commerce editorial board in New York recently. He was asked about several issues the influential NIT League has taken up, including its leading role in pushing Congress to further deregulate ocean shipping.In a wide-ranging interview, he also spoke about the UPS strike and its impact on NIT League members, shippers' growing interest in air cargo policy, and why his association looks favorably on CSX and Norfolk Southern's plan to divide up Conrail. * * *Q What is the outlook for liner shipping deregulation?It's going to happen; I wish I could tell you when. What's been frustrating about it is the changing nature of the opposition. If you go back two years, when we first proposed doing away with the Federal Maritime Commission, eliminating antitrust immunity for ocean carriers, and just completely deregulating, we had all kinds of people coming out of the woodwork saying that you are going to kill the U.S. flag fleet. Chief among those was Helen Bentley (former FMC chairwoman) So we did what I thought was the sensible thing to do and get together with the U.S.-flag fleet (APL, Sea-Land, Crowley) and work out a compromise.The real controversy right now was that the bill, S. 414, as it was heard in committee, allowed individual shippers and individual carriers to have confidential contracts. And it said if your conference or agreement has antitrust immunity, than you don't get to have a confidential contract. That was fine with us. It is still fine with us. But the Senate staff decided that they couldn't make the distinction between an individual contract and a group contract, so the latest version now says all of them will be treated confidentially except for certain essential terms. That has given some of the ports, particularly the Port of New York and New Jersey, some heartburn. Their concern is not over individual shippers having confidential contracts with individual carriers, but over the collective type contracts. That appears to be the biggest area of controversy right now.* * *Q Should the number of port calls by carriers really be an issue in this debate?The whole question of port calls is going to occur with or without this legislation. Whether or not there are fewer port calls will depend on the size of the ship making the call, and that has nothing to do with this legislation.* * *Q Why do you think foreign flag carriers are against deregulation?There are several theories, and not all the foreign flag lines are opposed. ''K'' Line is not. They're in favor of it. A lot of the foreign flag carriers just don't want any change. They think somehow this is going to benefit the U.S.-flag carriers.* * *Q Isn't there a legitimate concern among small shippers, though, that with confidential contracts, large volume shippers will get much better rates?Under the current system, the small shipper is guaranteed to pay a higher rate than the big shipper, because they can't match their volume. Under a deregulated system, what you frequently find is that small shippers have an ability to find a niche. A carrier might have space for two containers, and he'll take those two containers on almost a spot market situation.Under today's situation, if the carrier takes those two containers and gives a low rate just to take them, then he has to offer that same rate to a big shipper. And he doesn't want to do that. Furthermore, you have to look at where the small shipper concern comes from. It was the same argument in the fight against trucking deregulation: 'Small shippers are going to be hurt.' But if you look at who made the argument, it wasn't small shippers. It was the middleman. And that who is making the argument today on behalf of the small shippers. It is the so-called shipper associations, and their law firms, who get a cut.* * *Q What about the point that deregulation will exacerbate rate declines in major trade lanes, possibly leading some carriers to close their doors and a situation where shippers lack needed service?The carriers set those rates totally on their own. We had the same argument with trucking, railroad and airline deregulation. They said, 'Left to our own devices we are going to price ourselves out of existence.' What makes the ocean carriers so dumb that they are going to price themselves out of existence?Anyway, prices have never been the driving force behind deregulation. Of much more interest to us is the way service contracts are structured; the ability to structure a worldwide service contract, the placement of containers, all kinds of issues that don't have anything to do with price. It is a continuing frustration to hear people worrying so much that these carriers are not going to be able to stay in business.That is just hogwash. Somebody is going to stay in business. There is freight to carry. It's like saying the whole world is going to collapse. It's not going to happen.* * *Q But look at the consolidations you have. You have eight lines that have turned to four, and (John) Clancey (president and CEO of Sea-Land Service Inc.) told us that there are going to be two more consolidations.Look at any other industry and try and argue that somebody has got to protect them from themselves. Take grocery stores. Nobody goes out and tells grocery stores, 'We have to help you prop up your prices.' Once you got rid of (regulation) those industries (rail, truck and air) flourished. The history is there.* * *QWith that in mind, what is you opinion of Neptune Orient Line buying APL Ltd. (the second-largest U.S. flag container line behind Sea-Land)?I don't know that we have a particular position. But it is a continuation of a trend that has occurred under the current regime. (Consolidation) hasn't occurred under deregulation. It sort of proves my point that the U.S. flag is going to continue to go away unless we make some changes. The bottom line of what we are trying to do is increase the amount of freight that comes in and out of this country.* * *Q What about the argument that there is a fundamental difference between an industry that is deregulated on a national basis (like trucking and airlines) and an industry that exists in an international environment like ocean shipping?They're not terribly different. Keep in mind bulk shipping. Eighty percent of freight (by volume) that goes in and out of ports is already deregulated, and has that been a disaster? Have all the bulk shipping lines gone out of business?* * *Q What is the NIT League really after here?The bottom line is that shippers want to be able to do business with ocean carriers the same way they do business with other modes of transportation, and the same way they do business with ocean liner companies everywhere else in the world. The (deregulation) bill, in all its various incarnations, really just reflects what exists everywhere else in the world.You have confidential contracts and tariffs that are not enforced in the sense they are here. Our system is a throwback to an earlier era and eventually it is going to go away. All we're doing is trying in to get a situation that provides a level footing for U.S. shippers vs. shippers in other parts of the world.* * *Q What are some of the benefits?Efficiency and uniformity. For example, you would like to be able to create worldwide transportation contracts that don't have this one little blip in the U.S. trades that is totally different from everywhere else.* * *Q When it comes to deregulation, China appears to be moving in the opposite direction by requiring, through the newly created Shanghai Shipping Exchange, that ocean carriers publish their tariffs and keep their rates within a defined band. What's your take on that?They're a communist country; what can you say? They like that sort of stuff. It is not just the tariff filing, but the whole idea that the government is somehow going to be in the business of dictating rates. Minimums and maximums tend to be setting rates. That is the old system we had in transportation, and it didn't work.* * *Q What plans does the NIT League have to cooperate closer with its Canadian counterpart and shipper groups in other countries?The Canadian Industrial Transportation League is going with us to the tripartite meeting (in Dunblane, Scotland). Whether we ever become one organization remains to be seen, but I think you will see a much more cooperative relationship. But there is no counterpart in Mexico. There is no counterpart in most South American countries. We will probably start looking to do a summit of American shippers. We have member companies who have facilities all over, and sooner or later they will realize that there is some benefit to having an umbrella organization we can all talk through.* * *Q Air cargo has been in the news a lot recently, after TWA 800 and other major accidents. Have these triggered a greater interest in air cargo at the NIT League?If there is a growing area of interest for shippers, it is going to be in air cargo. The biggest problem is that a lot of policy-makers - and this is not criticism as much of a statement of fact - have never dealt with shippers before. When the FAA started looking at air cargo security after TWA 800, their original proposals would have been a nightmare. (One early recommendation) was to separate all cargo from passenger flights.Never mind that none of the terrorist acts had ever involved cargo; it had always involved checked baggage. Another of the early proposals would have had the named shipper accompany every package to the airport. Well, Roger Wigen was the named shipper for 3M (as manager of policy and industry affairs). He would have to go with every shipment to every airport in the country. That obviously wasn't going to work. Those issues are going to be more and more important.* * *Q Hasn't the pressure on air security eased somewhat?It is always going to be there. What shippers are figuring out is while they may know real well how to handle trucks, railroads, or ocean shipping, air has been one of these things they took for granted. They are going to have to learn how to handle air freight. All of the middlemen in the air freight business, the international forwarders, have had that business so tightly wrapped up that if you so much as mention the idea of a shipper dealing directly with an airline, airlines get beat over the head (by forwarders, who say), 'How on earth can you deal with shippers directly?' All of that is going to come to the fore.* * *Q What are some of the big rail issues NIT League members are dealing with?There are big problems out West. We started getting phone calls (in August) that shippers in the Houston area were very concerned over the UP's poor rail service. We started checking and found out there are shippers who have horror stories like a rail car they expected in five days was taking five weeks, (or) some not showing up at all.* * *Q What's your take on the CSX and Norfolk Southern's plan to divide up Conrail?Not everybody is going to get better rail service, and not everybody is going to get more service, but if you look at the big picture they (CSX and Norfolk Southern) are doing what shippers have asked to have done for years. If you are sole-served by Conrail now, and you will be sole-served by Norfolk Southern after the merger, are you happier? They all say 'yes.' I'm not picking on Conrail, but that is the general feeling.The only shippers who seem to have some difficulty are around Indianapolis, where they are going from two (railroads) to one. The Buffalo area also has some concerns. They're upset about their switch charges. And then there are some individual shippers that right now have interline service that when this is all said and done are going to have single line service with one railroad, whereas before they were able to set competitors off against each other. All in all, it is an entirely different situation from any of the other mergers because it is eliminating a monopoly and putting two railroads in.* * *Q Do you think there will be a merger of east and west railroads? John Snow (chief executive of CSX) told us he thought that would eventually occur.I think it will happen. But there is no reason for it to happen. If you look at traffic patterns, West Coast to East Coast traffic is not that big a deal. But the first time there is one merger, then you will see a second merger. My prediction for years was that you would have two east-west and one north-south railroad down the middle of the country.* * *Q What other rail issues do you see coming up?The discussion of rail transportation is always interesting because shippers have never had a choice of railroads in terms of who comes to your plant. There are very few shippers that are big enough to have two railroads come to their plant, so does it matter that there are 40 others in the country, or three others? That is what shippers are wrestling with. They don't know the answer to that. I don't know the answer to that.It is interesting that the Staggers Act (deregulating railroads) was passed when there were 40 Class-1 railroads, and now we are getting down to a handful. Do you need a different type of approach in terms of what is a captive shipper? I think that is what various coalitions like the Alliance for Rail Competition are going to be looking at.* * *Q You mean a different approach in terms of new regulations?We've always said in the case of railroads that you've got to have some form of regulation because you don't have freedom of entry. You don't have a free market system. You have some shippers in the extreme who think they want open access: One railroad rolling up and down another railroad's tracks. A whole lot of shippers have looked at that and said 'that ain't going to work. I'd like to know which rail operator is coming into and out of my plant.' They don't want just anybody showing up at the gate driving a locomotive. And would that allow the biggest railroad to pick and choose where they use their power units around the country? And would that leave other rail shippers completely out?Right now what we have is mainly anecdotal information about rail-to-rail competition. In the next couple of years I think you are going to see people develop real hard information. AAR has been saying for quite some time that rail rates have gone down dramatically. We don't know for sure that there is a big problem, but it is something we need to look at.* * *Q How do the short lines fit in when considering new railroad regulations?Short lines are excellent at what they're doing, but short lines become more like shippers than they do railroads. A short line to a Class-1 railroad is a shipper; it is not a railroad. How do they fit in? All those questions have to be answered, and I don't think it is going to be an adequate answer to form some group called the Committee Against Revising Staggers at all costs.The Staggers Act is approaching 20 years old. The industry has changed. There may be some changes, but I sure wouldn't want to go out and say we want to do this or that at this point. We need to find out what that is.* * *Q How did the UPS strike affect your members?A lot of our members made arrangements. They didn't want to have to deal with this on a long-term basis. That was the concern. If the strike had gone on much longer, somebody was going to have to step up to the line, whether it was FedEx or one of the other companies, and they were going to have to invest in equipment which would have required major shippers giving them long-term contracts. The bigger concern I heard from our members was about what this might mean for next year, for the national LTL (less-than-truckload) freight agreement (with the Teamsters). And if I'm Roger Curry (chief executive of Consolidated Freightways Corp.), Mike Wickham (chief executive of Roadway Express Inc.) Or Maurice Myers (chief executive of Yellow Corp.), I'm sweating bullets right now. They have to be. I have all due respect for those guys, but I wouldn't want to be in their position because shippers who are redoing their contracts are going to be looking at what the Teamsters just did, and asking themselves whether they really want to subject themselves to that.If I were the Teamsters and the carriers, I would try to get a settlement in the next couple of months. There are an awful lot of nonunion carriers out there. Even if shippers still maintain their contract with the unionized carrier, they are all going to have a backup contract with a nonunionized carrier for next year.* * *Q Does the Post Office come out of this as a more viable alternative?I don't think they changed a whole lot. At no time at this whole process did anyone from MTAC (Mailers Technical Advisory Committee, a Post Office unit that interacts with industry) contact us, and it would have been a perfect time for them to really make some hay. They really missed it on that.EDWUARD M. EMMETT: PROFILETITLE: Since 1992, president and chief operating officer of the National Industrial Transportation League, the nation's oldest and largest association of transport users. Known principallyfor defending the interests of large corporations, the NIT League's advocacy spans the transport spectrm from rail to intermodal in both domestic and international spheres.AGE: 48FORMER: Commissioner and vice-chairman, Interstate Commerce Commission (1989-1992); Republican state representative, Texas Legislature (1979-1987); executive director, Texas Association to Improve Distribution (1986-1989); executive director, North Houston Association (1983-1986); policy analyst, Exxon U.S.A. (1976-1979); special assistant to the U.S. Secretary of Health, Education and Welfate (1975-1976). Graduated from Rice University.PERSONAL: Currently resides in Bethesda, Md., with his wife and four children.</div>

Edward Emmett: "Our System is a Throwback to an Earlier Era"

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At SSA Marine Mexico, we firmly believe that business development must go hand in hand with social and environmental well-being. Our vision is not solely focused on operating efficiently, but also on creating a meaningful and positive impact in the communities where we are present. Since 1995, we have reaffirmed this commitment through tangible actions that reflect our core values of responsibility, solidarity, and sustainability. <span class="joc_admin__inline-image joc_admin__inline-image-aspect-ratio-3_2 joc_admin__inline-image-position-left joc_admin__inline-image-size-medium" data-figure-size="medium" data-figure-position="left" data-figure-aspect-ratio="3:2"><img src="/content-assets/1752584535914_Photo%201.jpg" alt="" class="joc_admin__inline-image-inherit"> A Year of Major Achievements Over the past year, we allocated more than $107,000 USD to the implementation of 60 social and environmental projects, positively impacting over 7,800 people across various regions of Mexico. Each initiative was designed with a holistic approach, addressing key areas that contribute to long-term community development. Education: Laying the Foundation for the Future Education is one of the most powerful tools to promote social mobility and equitable development. At SSA Marine Mexico, we support academic initiatives that inspire and empower the next generation of leaders. One of our most impactful partnerships was with the University of Colima, where we sponsored the “Reto Camp” program. This initiative encourages university students to develop innovative solutions in the fields of sustainability, logistics, and port operations, offering them mentorship, tools, and real-world challenges to solve. In addition, we donated microscopes, school supplies, and educational materials to institutions in underserved communities, helping to improve the learning environment and provide students with the resources they need to succeed. Health and Sports: Promoting Wellness We believe that healthy communities are strong communities. We have supported several local sporting events and provided direct assistance to talented athletes, enabling them to pursue their passions and represent their regions with pride. Beyond sports, we also strengthened our collaboration with critical emergency response organizations such as the Mexican Red Cross and Civil Protection. Our contributions helped enhance their readiness and capabilities in times of crisis, ensuring better outcomes for those affected by emergencies. Supporting Vulnerable Groups: Reaching Those Who Need It Most A core part of our social responsibility efforts is directed toward supporting vulnerable populations. We have contributed to a range of initiatives focused on children, migrants, and at-risk families. These efforts included donations to orphanages and shelters, as well as support for the National Institute of Migration and grassroots organizations dedicated to protecting and empowering people facing adversity. By standing with those in need, we reinforce our commitment to inclusion and social justice, values that are central to our identity as a responsible company. <span class="joc_admin__inline-image joc_admin__inline-image-aspect-ratio-3_2 joc_admin__inline-image-position-left joc_admin__inline-image-size-medium" data-figure-size="medium" data-figure-position="left" data-figure-aspect-ratio="3:2"><img src="/content-assets/1752584944645_Photo%202.png" alt="" class="joc_admin__inline-image-inherit">Culture: Strengthening Community Identity Cultural identity is a key element in building resilient and united communities. At SSA Marine Mexico, we actively participate in the organization and sponsorship of cultural events that celebrate local traditions and foster civic pride. Working alongside port authorities and municipal governments, we helped bring music, art, and heritage to the forefront, creating spaces for community engagement and intercultural dialogue. Environment: Investing in the Planet Our commitment to sustainability goes beyond operations—it’s a philosophy that drives every decision we make. We have partnered with environmental institutions to carry out reforestation campaigns, beach cleanups, and conservation efforts. In collaboration with the Institute for the Environment, we supported initiatives aimed at decarbonization, biodiversity protection, and environmental education. By involving our employees and local volunteers in these actions, we also foster a culture of environmental stewardship throughout our organization and our surrounding communities. Innovation for a Sustainable Future Sustainability is not just about doing good—it’s also about doing things better. In 2024, we invested $22 million USD in the acquisition of 11 state-of-the-art E-RTG cranes. These electric rubber-tired gantry cranes represent a significant technological advancement in port equipment. Seven of them are already operating on clean electric energy, resulting in a reduction of nearly 4,000 tons of CO₂ emissions and improving operational efficiency by 7%. The remaining four cranes are fully compatible with future electrification, underscoring our long-term strategy to modernize our operations in an environmentally responsible way. This investment is part of a broader innovation roadmap that includes digitalization, automation, and cleaner energy sources—all designed to ensure that our ports continue to grow without compromising the health of our planet. Building a Better Tomorrow, Together At SSA Marine Mexico, we understand that sustainability is a shared and ongoing responsibility. True impact requires collaboration across sectors, long-term vision, and unwavering commitment. That is why we continue to work hand-in-hand with local authorities, non-profit organizations, universities, and our own employees to create solutions that are both scalable and sustainable. Our journey is far from over. In the years ahead, we will continue to deepen our community engagement, explore cleaner technologies, and strengthen the social fabric of the regions where we operate. Each initiative, no matter the size, is a step toward building a future where business success goes hand-in-hand with human and environmental prosperity. We are proud of what we have achieved in 2024, but we are even more excited about what lies ahead. SSA Marine Mexico — Moving the World, Caring for People and Planet. LINK: https://www.ssamarine.mx/<span class="joc_admin__inline-image joc_admin__inline-image-aspect-ratio-16_9 joc_admin__inline-image-position-left joc_admin__inline-image-size-small" data-figure-size="small" data-figure-position="left" data-figure-aspect-ratio="16:9"><img src="/content-assets/1752585040485_SSA%20Marine%20Mexico%20logo%20150pxW.png" alt="" class="joc_admin__inline-image-inherit">

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SSA Marine Mexico: True Commitment to Sustainability

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