Supply chain

If shippers want to blunt rising transportation costs, and carriers want more sustainable profits, they need to learn to connect not just the dots but also the bytes.

After more than a decade of frustration and delays, the Coast Guard is pressing on with efforts to turn the much-maligned Transportation Worker Identification Credential into more than a pricey photo ID.

Cucumber exports from Mexico’s Yucatán state reached a record high this past season, according to Grup Marítim TCB.

Yourway Transport will expand its biopharmaceutical services in Lehigh Valley, Pa., according to Pennsylvania’s Gov. Tom Corbett.

Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, NBIM, and the European arm of U.S. commercial property group Prologis have acquired a $385 million portfolio of warehouses in the U.K.

Employment in transportation and warehousing climbed 1.4 percent in May, as the U.S. economy added 175,000 jobs, according to data released Friday by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

China has launched an anti-dumping and anti-subsidy investigation into wines imported from the European Union, Xinhua reports.

With pension funds and investment trusts buying more warehouses and distribution centers, “true” developers of industrial real estate are becoming harder to find, according to industry executives.

Cryoport reported a net loss of $6.4 million in fiscal year 2013, ending March 31, 2013, improving from a net loss of $7.8 million in fiscal year 2012, ending March 31, 2012.

Container ship lines are supporting a state legislative effort to repeal a cargo facilities charge that carriers say is costing them millions of dollars a year at the Port of New York and New Jersey.

According to a new Rabobank report on agribusiness logistics in Brazil, 2013 is likely to be a “very difficult” year, as a result of pressure on Brazil’s transportation and export system.

For the first time in years, there are some favorable winds blowing for the Maritime Administration and the U.S.-flag fleet.

The U.K. Competition Commission said Eurotunnel, the operator of the subsea rail link to France, must abandon its roll-on, roll-off shipping service between the two countries.

Rakuten Inc., operator of Japan’s biggest online shopping site, said on June 6 that it will acquire a 100% stake in midsize U.S. logistics company Webgistix to strengthen its e-commerce operations in that country.

Transnet and the NEPAD Business Foundation have launched the Africa Infrastructure Desk in Johannesburg to develop infrastructure for intra-Africa trade.

The U.S. industrial real estate industry has entered a period of strong net absorption, declining vacancy rates and increasing rents for warehouse and distribution facilities, according to a top industry executive.

Lineage Logistics will begin construction of a new 420,000 square foot multi-use cold storage warehouse in Colton, Calif.

CUSTOMS Info Global Data Mining has promoted Matt Gersper to chairman of the board.

Brookfield Asset Management, through its private equity group, has acquired the stock of Millard Refrigerated Services – Canada.

Purolator International has introduced PuroPost for business-to-consumer shipments between the U.S. and Canada.

The European Commission has concluded that Latvia has achieved a “high degree” of sustainable economic convergence with the euro area and has subsequently proposed that...

Antwerp, Rotterdam and Düsseldorf are the best logistics hubs in Europe, but they face a growing challenge from emerging hubs in the east of the continent, according to a report by Colliers International, a global commercial real estate company.

The Indian union government has issued a decree calling on national security agencies to expedite approvals for port development projects being implemented under the public-private partnership model.

CaroTrans, a non-vessel operating common carrier, has partnered with Multifreight Consolidator System, an NVOCC in the Philippines market, to offer less-than-containerload and full containerload import and export cargo services...

The Railway Association of Canada and the Federation of Canadian Municipalities have unveiled land use guidelines and a website intended to promote best practices and awareness about the issues...

Dunavant Trans Gulf has hired Bethany Coots as director of marketing and business development.

Tompkins International has promoted Denny McKnight, former executive vice president of supply chain consulting services, as its president.

Sens. Max Baucus, D-Mont., and Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, Senate Finance Mommittee chairman and ranking member, respectively, have introduced a bill to strengthen trade facilitation and enforcement efforts of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The European Commission has decided to impose provisional tariffs on solar panels imported from China, following a nine-month investigation, in order to counter the dumping of these products on the European market.

The European Commission has approved a proposed joint venture between OJSC Unimilk Company of Russia, part of Danone Group, and NDL International, part of Norbert Dentressangle Group, both of France.

The Coast Guard captain of the Port of St. Louis has restricted traffic on the upper Mississippi River following high water.

The Federal Maritime Commission has published proposed rules that would represent the first substantive revision of regulations for forwarders and non-vessel-operating common carriers since the Ocean Shipping Reform Act of 1998.

The Australian Trade Commission will open an office in Yangon, Myanmar, on June 6.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has opened its final three Centers of Excellence and Expertise in Miami, San Francisco and Atlanta.

China’s factory activity deteriorated for the first time in seven months in May as both domestic and external demand softened, a private survey showed, adding to concerns that the world’s second-largest economy is losing momentum.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has published a notice in the Federal Register stating that any domestic producer who is entitled to file a claim under the Continued Dumping and Subsidy Offset Act of 2000...

The National Industrial Transportation League has proposed a change to rules governing U.S. railroad that, if promulgated by the U.S. Surface Transportation Board, would establish new standards by which shippers who are served by a single Class I carrier could qualify for competitive switching of their freight to a second carrier if certain criteria are met.

Coregistics, a packaging supply chain services company, has acquired substantially all of the assets of Cano Packaging...

A Department of Transportation study on the ramifications of allowing heavier and bigger trucks won’t likely end the decades-long debate over the issue, but it could provide Congress with a more definitive roadmap.