Border Lines

By Staff -- Logistics Management, 4/1/2000

The Can/Am Border Trade Alliance's annual spring meeting, slated for May 7-9 in Ottawa, promises numerous opportunities for shippers and carriers to meet top Canadian policymakers. Minister of Transport David Collenette, Minister of National Revenue Martin Cauchon, and provincial transport ministers from Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, and Ontario are among the confirmed speakers. As always, the conference format and small group meetings encourage dialogue between audience and speakers. For more information, contact Can/Am BTA's Executive Director Jim Phillips at (716) 754-8824.

"Is there any reason to believe that [North American] cross-border trade will be immune to the trends that are dominating global business?" Steve Lautsch of San Francisco-based consultants the Kingsley Group posed that provocative question at Transporte Internacional, an annual conference on cross-border trade and transportation that Kingsley sponsors. The answer, Lautsch said, clearly was no. Although some aspects of North American cross-border trade remain mired in outdated practices, he said, the advent of Internet-based technology, borderless communication media such as online auctions, and the concept of global supply chain management all are conspiring to force cross-border business into the 21st century. Given the inevitability of those changes, Lautsch suggested that carriers and logistics service providers in the United States, Canada, and Mexico consider how they could become as productive as their shipper customers.

The U.S. Customs Service last month closed down the NAFTA Center, a Dallas facility that provided information about the North American Free Trade Agreement to as many as 20,000 callers annually. The center, which opened in 1995, hosted customs experts from the U.S., Canadian, and Mexican governments, offering exporters and importers a single source of NAFTA information. In announcing the closing, U.S. Customs said the center was no longer needed because the trade community and customs officials were all familiar with the trade agreement's rules by now.

NAFTA Notes: BAX Global has added a B727 freighter to its daily service between British Columbia, Alberta, and the United States, a move that will allow shippers to benefit from earlier arrival times and later departures. Union-Transport has acquired Commerce Customs Brokers & Freight Forwarders Ltd., an Ontario-based company with operations at more than 20 customs ports in Canada. PBB Global Logistics has added several features to its Customs Tariff Search Engine, including a new format that makes it easier to navigate and search for information, as well as complete year 2000 tariff codes and duty rates for imports into Canada. Canada Maritime has been named "Ocean Carrier of the Year" by the Canadian International Freight Forwarders Association. Canmar also was named Best Carrier on two Canada-Europe trade routes. UPS Worldwide Logistics Group has opened a 32,000-square-foot distribution facility in Laredo, Texas, that will provide cross-docking, warehousing, order-fulfillment, and other support capabilities for the maquiladora industry. U.S. Customs Service officers and Mexican customs brokers will be located on site to speed up shipment processing.