William B. Skinner III, President, New York/New Jersey Foreign Freight Forwarders and Brokers Association

https://www.nynjforwarders-brokers.org
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William B. Skinner III

The year 2019 will likely be another rewarding, frustrating, hectic, and markedly productive year for the logistics industry. One of our biggest challenges is to simply stay current with legislation, trade agreements, and tariffs in flux.

The good news is that the strong economy has, in turn, driven strong consumer demand and a strong import environment. In our New York-New Jersey region, port volume increased 7.2 percent in the first nine months of 2018. Several marine terminals are extending hours to accommodate increased volume. Local businesses are all benefiting from recently completed initiatives including the elevated Bayonne Bridge, extensive dredging to accommodate larger ships, and an array of terminal improvements.

While the trade deficit with China rose to its highest level ever, despite intense efforts by the Trump administration to close the trade gap, the goal is a stronger, more equitable trade position with the world’s largest market. We are all watching to see how the tariff initiatives play out.

From a broker perspective, the ACE system has helped tremendously to improve communications with US Customs and other agencies. A huge enhancement would be a two-way messaging system through the entry to allow for communications and link them directly to the historical messages in ACE.

Currently, if brokers see an issue with an entry keeping it from being released, time-consuming, frustrating back and forth communications ensue. This could be vastly improved by using ACE to communicate directly with the party that is holding the freight. And this type of system would reduce or eliminate the need for each port to have its own problem resolution system.

We are advising our members and clients to stay informed. No facet of this industry is untouched by the emerging changes in international trade agreements, new tariffs, new security challenges (particularly cyber crimes) and potentially big new opportunities being created as our economy continues to grow.