The International Air Transport Association released figures for airfreight markets in April which showed modest growth of 1.4 percent compared to April 2012. This small increase helped to offset the 2.6-percent decline recorded in March compared to the year-ago period. And it continues an 18-month trend of basically no growth in the cargo markets.
Nelson Cabrera, director of business development at Lilly and Associates, provides first-hand information on the operation of Panama's Colon Free Zone.
Few observers doubt the immense potential of Brazil, one of the world's most significant emerging economies. Indeed, Brazil has great advantages. Compared with its colleagues in the BRIC quartet of emerging giants, it is richer than India and China and larger and more democratically stable than Russia. It is the largest nation in Latin America, with one-third of the region's population generating 44 percent of its GDP. Already the sixth-largest economy in the world, it could become the fifth by 2020, according to forecasts by the Economist Intelligence Unit. But growth, and the investment decisions that underpin it, doesn't happen by magic. Substantial growth takes enlightened government and well-informed decisions by potential investors.
Crowley Maritime Corp. has added a second weekly southbound sailing from Port Everglades, Fla., to Nassau, Bahamas, as part of its Caribbean ocean-freight service.
To cope with the larger vessels that will transit through the Panama Canal when its expansion is complete in 2015, Central American countries must dramatically improve their intermodal road and port network infrastructure, the quality of their trucking services and strengthen their institutional coordination, two studies issued today by the Inter-American Development Bank show.