2006, December 15: Through the relentless work of the Caribbean Shipping Association (CSA), there has been great improvement in efficiency of port operations in the Caribbean region over recent years. However, according to the recently-elected President of the CSA, there is much more to be done.

“I don’t think we can yet claim that we have done enough,” Fernando Rivera said as he delivered his first address at the 30th annual Caribbean Central American Action (CCAA) conference held recently in Miami, Florida. Addressing the December 5 workshop on Transportation And Logistics on the topic- CREATING EFFICIENT LINKS TO THE GLOBAL MARKET, Mr. Rivera noted that, despite the tremendous gains over recent years, “…economic realities have prevented us doing as much as we want to do.”

CSA President Fernando Rivera is warmly greeted by Jamaica's

Prime Minister Portia Simpson (right) at CCAA Miami Conference.

In this regard, he listed problems related to economies of scale and scarcity of capital resources.

The CSA President noted, as an example, the fact that sea ports in the Caribbean were forced to comply with a number of stringent and costly port security regulations from a number of organizations following the terrorist attacks in the United States of America. This had to be done “… at tremendous expense in order to continue doing business into the USA. However, these poor, debt-ridden countries had little or no significant support from the real beneficiaries of these security measures – the more developed countries,” he said

“And while these small territories struggle with the tremendous cost of developing efficient and dependable port operations and having to purchase expensive security technologies from the developed countries; we are faced with the damaging effects of overweight containers being landed on our wharves.

“Not only does this damage the ports that we have only just recently spent large sums building,” Mr. Rivera said, “but they do untold damage to the road network of our countries – the same roads that we must use to get our exports to the ports.

“We need the carriers (shipping Lines) that call on our ports to understand the great social and economic problems that this causes,” the CSA President said.

Through the work of the Caribbean Shipping Association, the Caribbean region has made tremendous strides in working with the users of shipping to develop trade. Together, we have promoted and facilitated improvement, expansion and modernization of our ports. However, there is much more to be done, Mr. Rivera said.

Pledging the support of the CSA for CCAA initiatives to assist the Caribbean, the CSA President said: “It is imperative that there is total cooperation of all the stakeholders – not just the port owners and operators in the Caribbean but the carriers which serve the ports and the exporters and importers which use the ports.”

In outlining the role of development played by the CSA over its 36-year history, Mr. Rivera noted that the Association had created a forum for carriers, port management and the private sector to work together to facilitate and expand trade.