Despite the global economic slump, the future of international, intermodal transportation will be strong and vibrant in this era of globalization, Peter Keller, member of the board of directors of the Intermodal Transportation Institute at the University of Denver and president of NYK Line, recently told representatives from transportation government and academia. Keller delivered the keynote address at the Denver Transportation Club's 28th Annual Transportation Forum, the premier transportation conference in the Rocky Mountain Region.
"We live in a world that is truly flat, as Thomas Friedman points out so well in his recent book," said Keller. "All we need do is look at how quickly this economic downturn came upon the entire world. The growth of international transportation during the 1990s and earlier has brought the continents closer together and made us increasingly interdependent. Certainly we are all concerned about the current economic situation and the state of our international supply chain community, which has seen consumer confidence wither and demand decline; but we cannot turn back the clock. Our world will continue to shrink, to flatten, and we will continue to be more interdependent. While we are in a difficult economy, we should not dismiss the distinctions between the short-, medium-, and long-term future of transportation in a global economy. International trade and transportation will flourish in the long term."
Source: Denver Transportation Club