Also in the USA is discussed about amalgamation of ports


In Italy is discussed in these weeks of the possible amalgamation of Harbour Authorities, proposal that would re-enter in the plan of the minister of Infrastructures and the Transports, Maurizio Lupi, in order to throw again the national portualità increasing the efficiency of the administrations of the ports of call and slimming the governance of the ports.

an analogous proposal is advanced in the United States and is centralized on the fusion of the two main ports container of West Coast: Los Angeles City and Long Beach, than last year have enlivened respective 7,9 million and 6,7 million teu. It is a hypothesis that also in American earth, like in Italy, has quickly provoked critical from the local communities.

At the beginning of the 2013 Prime Minister of the communal administration of Los Angeles City, Herb Wesson, has asked Mickey Kantor, lawyer and politician whom in the past the charge of secretary al Commercio of the USA government has covered, to form the Los Angeles City 2020 Commission, a private organism and independent person in charge to study and to analyze the modalities in order to assure to Los Angeles City an increase of the tax revenue and the occupation. To a year from the beginning of the intense activities, today the Commission has now introduced a relationship from the title "To Time for action" in which it details to the outcome of own investigations and appraisals.

Second the Commission, is possible to determine the creation of places of work through innovative measures of economic development. Between the main ones, specifically time to put into effect collaboration forms that can produce to more occupation and investments and therefore an increase of the fiscal returns, is the union of the two Californian ports.

the study evidences that the ports of call of Los Angeles City and Long Beach together constitutes the fifth port more sold the world, and the most traded in absolute in the western hemisphere, and they are respective the first and second for volume of traffic of the container in the United States.

Second the Los Angeles City 2020 Commission, the ports of Los Angeles City and Long Beach "would have to put to profit the their individual successes in a port combined to the aim to improve their total competitive position". The Commission explains because the two ports would have to join their forces: first of all "- the study finds - the quota the goods of the nation enlivened by our region is come down of beyond five points percentages in the past decade. But draft not to only get lost five points of market share; draft of tax revenue and places of work. Alone - the study specifies - this decrease of the market share is pairs to the dimension of the fifth greater port of the nation, Seattle-Tacoma, that it represents more than 60.000 places of work and has entered for beyond 100 million dollars. We must fight - the Commission emphasizes - in order to carry those places of work and that Internal Revenue to Los Angeles City".

the Los Angeles City 2020 Commission evidences that the increase of or the other port often happens to scapito own of the concurrent directed one, as in fact has happened often during the last few years. "Too much often - the study finds - the ports of Los Angeles City and Long Beach diffuse press releases in which they boast new customers. It is necessary to analyze the details in order to understand that these customers are passing from Los Angeles City to Long Beach or vice versa and they are not carrying new places of work in the region. And with the widening under the Channel of Panama hat, the marine commerce is about to become very more competitive complex and. We would have to be in competition with the ports of other regions, not one with the other".

the study emphasizes moreover that "this type of regional cooperation is in existence elsewhere. "The third greater port of the United States, the Harbour Authority of New York and New Jersey - the Commission remembers - has been composed of two States rivals who are not in agreement on many things, but that they comprise the value to cooperate in order to share a better future. In the 2008 ports of the area of Vancouver they have put together property and assets in order to constitute the Port Vancouver Meter, that it has carried meaningful economic benefits in terms of occupation and to the region. In January 2014 the ports of Seattle and Tacoma, than find 30 miles of distance from one another, have decided to share the information on the operations, the structures and the rates in order to help Puget Sound to compete in world-wide a marine field that is in transformation".

the Commission indicates also the union type that would have to be adopted from the two ports: "Long Beach and Los Angeles City - specific the study - could stipulate a Joint Powers Agreement (JPA) in order to so direct the future strategies and addresses like the planning of the investments and the definition of the rates. A JPA (than in the USA is an entity formed from two or more public authority, ndr) does not have to be interpreted like an incorporation of the port of Los Angeles City in that of Long Beach or vice versa. Indeed, this would have to be a true collaboration 50:50, with the board of directors composed from pairs representation named from the Municipalities of Los Angeles City and Long Beach. Al moment the single ports would have to still supervise day by day to the operations, but in the time the ports would naturally come legacies more closely in their every day activities".

the first negative reaction to the proposal of the Commission of Los Angeles City has reached from the first citizen of Long Beach: "I do not understand - laconic Bob Foster has commented - which can be the benefit". Foster has raised the price the dose remembering that the proposal comes from an administration, that of, than in the past the role of Long Beach in other plans of economic development has belittled dealing it like city of series B.

Also the chief executive officer of the Port of Long Beach has not favorably received the exhortation of the Los Angeles City 2020 Commission: according to Doug Drummond, in fact, Long Beach would not draw advantages from a fusion of the two ports. Drummond has emphasized that the two harbour ports of call have operated in independent way for beyond 100 years and have asserted that would be an error brands to abandon this operating model.