US west box port community says scrap harbour tax - or spend it on us
2012 03 13
- Details
VOCIFEROUS opposition to the US Harbour Maintenance Tax has been voiced at the recent Long Beach-hosted JOC Transpacific Maritime Conference by west coast maritime interests who say it drives cargo away though Canadian ports and is spent to help rivals on the east coast.
West coast ports pay most of the dredging tax because they takes in most of the cargo while east coast ports get most of the dredging, which makes those ports more accessible to Asian cargo that is being diverted from west coast through the Panama to the US eastern seaboard.
"Shippers going through our ports pay money for this and they are not seeing it used," Long Beach port CEO Chris Lytle told London's Containerisation International.
"A lot of money is collected and we need to make sure that it goes to us and the use needs to be expanded - we should be allowed to utilise it," he said.
The tax, which chiefly pays for dredging, has been in the spotlight recently with the Federal Maritime Commission (FMC) investigating claims that the tax is driving shippers away from US west coast ports to Canada, where the tax is not payable.
Said Tacoma port commissioner Connie Bacon: "Price matters: There are financial incentives for shippers to reroute to ports where they don't have to pay this tax."
"HMT [Harbour Maintenance Tax] is not fair. Ports on the west coast get no use out of it. It would be great if the money collected could be spent on things that are important to us," she said.
Anthony Pagano, professor of supply chain management and logistics at the University of Illinois said: "Get rid of it, kill it, we don't need it."
Disagreeing that Canada is a serious threat to US cargo, Vancouver port CEO Robin Silvester said: "There are some who believe that a fee should be levied at land borders of the US/Canada. These are misconceptions; this will inhibit, not create growth."
Mr Silvester has often said that 95 per cent of his import cargo is Canada-bound, so the tax does not affect his operations much. Less than five per cent of Vancouver's 2.2 million TEU annual throughput in 2011 went to the US. While proportions tend to be reversed through Prince Rupert, the small container terminal 200 miles up the coast from Vancouver only handles 410,366 TEU in imports a year against 10 million TEU for Long Beach and 1.49 million TEU for Tacoma.
But Tacoma's Ms Bacon said: "If the HMT is not important than why does PMV [Port of Metro Vancouver] run ads encouraging shippers to use the port because there is no tax?"
Said LB's Mr Lytle: "We lose cargo because of this tax. The price of cargo is one of many reasons why shippers move cargo to different ports, It's a lot more money. The HMT clearly needs to be looked at."
Source Shipping Gazette - Daily Shipping News
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