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To Frank Appel, CEO of Deutsche Post DHL Group, logistics isn’t simply a business. It’s also a change agent that has increased global prosperity significantly in recent decades as trade agreements pulled down market barriers and helped reshape not just trade lanes, but also economies and even societies.

Its economy, its currency and many of its commodity products may be tanking, but the decline has yet to ruffle the feathers of one of Brazil’s largest exports: chicken.

DP World-operated Nhava Sheva (India) Gateway Terminal on Friday received a call from the 11,000 twenty-foot-equivalent unit MSC Francesca, the largest container ship ever to dock at Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust, India’s biggest public container gateway.

Washington state legislators are once again pushing to reform the U.S. Harbor Maintenance Fee in an effort to secure more funding for the ports of Seattle and Tacoma, two gateways facing stiff competition from Western Canadian ports for U.S.-bound cargo.

Spot freight rates from Shanghai to the West Coast hit a record low this week, dropping to $761 per 40-foot container.

With U.S. truckload capacity at its highest level since the recession, and freight demand slow to rise, truck shippers increasingly are resisting rate increases, the latest indices from Cass and Avondale Partners indicate.

Political corruption that has riveted Brazilians like a telenova and driven millions into the streets is slowing down the country’s bureaucracy and imperiling critical infrastructure projects.

As part of an effort to improve yields and better cost and price shipments, FedEx Freight says it will add eight dimensional scanners to the 45 it already uses to reweigh and classify freight at terminals.

The Northwest Seaport Alliance of Seattle and Tacoma turned in another strong performance in February. Laden import container traffic jumped 29 percent over February 2015, loaded export containers surged 46.6 percent and total loaded international containers rose 28.3 percent year over year.

Kakinada Port, India’s new alternative east coast gateway that began container-handling at the end of last year, got its first break from a mainline customer with Maersk Line introducing a direct port call at the minor privately-operated facility as part of what the container line said was "moving closer to shippers and seeking new growth areas."

APM Terminals says its new container terminal in Mexico will have an “immediate” impact on the country’s local and international trade despite lagging regional Latin American and global economic growth and a sluggish global ocean container market.

DP World-operated International Container Transshipment Terminal, or Vallarpadam Terminal, at India’s Port of Cochin on Friday exceeded 400,000 twenty-foot-equivalent units in a single fiscal year for the first time ever, according to the newest port figures collected by JOC.com.

Construction work is set to commence on the second phase of the only deep-sea port in central Africa at Kribi, Cameroon after a second round of financing was arranged with the Export-Import Bank of China.

CMA CGM on Friday announced its debut in the intra-Mediterranean trade with a dedicated direct service between nine southern Europe, North Africa and Middle East ports.

APM Terminals-operated Pipavav Port’s efforts to grow container volumes received a big push earlier this week when the INDFEX, or India-Far East Express, consortium introduced a regular weekly call at the minor facility on India’s west coast.

Forwarders are reporting a growing number of enquiries for zero freight rates on container shipments from Asia to North Europe, even as spot rates on the trade and on Asia-Mediterranean this week matched the lowest levels ever recorded.

The owner-operator drayage model in Southern California took another hit this week as the prominent and creative harbor trucking company TTSI filed for bankruptcy in a federal court in Delaware.

CMA CGM is accelerating its expansion in West Africa, introducing a new fleet, extending coverage and upgrading an existing line, building on its extensive ocean service and inland transport corridors into the hinterland.

Shippers seeking to avoid supply chain disruption on July 1 when a new container weight rule takes effect need to be mindful of one key fact irrespective of what they may or may not be hearing from government enforcement agencies: No matter what country a ship is departing from, container carriers cannot load a container for which it has not received a verified gross mass declaration from the shipper.

APM Terminals is working to determine which of its 72 terminals are suitable for offering container-weighing services so that shippers and carriers can be assured they are in compliance with the verified gross mass amendment to SOLAS, which takes effect July 1.

The Port of Charleston posted a 13 percent year-over-year increase in container volume in February and celebrated the loading of the 2 millionth BMW exported through the port since the German automaker began operations in South Carolina.

Suggestions that Amazon.com’s forays into air freight and logistics might disrupt the business of traditional package carriers or compete with them are “fantastical,” FedEx founder and Chief Executive Officer Fred Smith said Wednesday. “Let me emphasize I choose this word carefully,” Smith said.

The Korea Development Bank is giving Hyundai Merchant Marine some breathing room on its debts after other creditors of the container line rejected its offer to reschedule debt, edging the company closer to a potential bankruptcy.

Lufthansa Cargo remained in the black for yet another year in 2015, overcoming the damaging impact of a pilots’ strike and growing oversupply in the global air freight market, while its main European rivals sank deeper into the red.

Kansas City Southern Railway is resuming operations and reopening lines after severe flooding on the Louisiana-Texas border shut down intermodal service on both its main lines south and east of Shreveport.

In a followup to a previous trade advisory, customs authorities at Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust have set up a separate wing to handle processes related to “direct port delivery” for the clearance of import freight from India’s biggest public container gateway as part of larger program to facilitate trade and ease congestion in the harbor.

Russia and China have signed an agreement to build a $300 million bridge over the Amur river to link the Russian border city of Blagoveshchensk with Heihe, China, paving the way for truck and containerized rail on the corridor.

Dubai-based global terminal operator DP World announced a strong financial performance in 2015 with revenues up 16.3 percent to $3.97 billion and net profit up 30.7 percent to $883 million, driven primarily by the acquisition of Economic Zones World.

The world’s second-largest container manufacturer, Singamas Container Holdings, collapsed to a 2015 net loss of $2.7 million as falling demand for new containers combined with a sharply declining average selling price of its boxes.

Hanjin Shipping will replace its joint pendulum service connecting the U.S. West Coast to Asia and the Mediterranean with an exclusive Hanjin-supplied service as the carrier restructures its network in the face of surplus capacity and weak demand.

Logistics property developer Goodman has secured 100 percent of its Brazil operating platform, giving the Australia-based company complete control over the 190 million square feet it has under management.

Stronger-than-expected online shipping demand pressured various points in FedEx's transportation network in December, raising volumes on air and ground in the quarter that ended Feb. 29.

U.S.-Mexico cross-border trade experts say it will be nearly impossible for U.S. presidential hopeful Donald Trump to pursue many of the cornerstones of his trade platform: including his now-infamous wall and severe tariffs on Mexico imports.

NileDutch, a specialized West Africa container line, has acquired the Europe to West Africa services and operations of independent Maersk Line subsidiary Safmarine.

The Obama Administration has made it easier for container services calling the United States to add Cuba as port of call, a small step in unleashing container trade between the two countries that has been stymied by a 56-year trade embargo.

Exports of Brazilian beef jumped by more than a quarter in February year-over-year, which bodes well for the country’s exporters who have already been forecasting a bumper year ahead because of the weak national currency and the lifting of export bans.

The global idle container ship fleet has soared to an all-time high, with rising numbers of larger ships unemployed, driven by a widening demand-supply gap,

The small port here is no threat to the Los Angeles-Long Beach port complex’s U.S. import business, but Ensenada’s reliability and ability to get high-tech goods and auto parts to Mexican factories fast — often on the same day of the ship call — has won it cargo from the Goliath just 200 miles to the north.

Cosco Pacific is being hotly tipped to clinch the bid for Greece’s state-owned rail operator just weeks after winning control of the nation’s largest port of Piraeus, a top Mediterranean container hub.

The 16th Annual TPM Conference in Long Beach generated industry headlines and insights available nowhere else. While those on the ground at the event got the early scoop, we have you covered with these key takeaways from the diverse array of panels and discussions hosted by our talented and experienced team of editors.