The Chilean Association of Fruit Exporters AG, ASOEX, expressed its concern about the possible shutdown of the 29 ports on the west coast of the United States, in approximately five to ten days. The shutdown would be due to the differences between employers and workers, for which they have been bargaining collectively since May last year.
The current port congestion is causing difficulties in operations, and according to some executives, such as James McKenna, president of the Pacific Maritime Association, this could lead to a collapse of operations in the ports on the west coast of America so they would be forced to paralyse operations; a scenario that has been denied by the dockworkers' unions.
Nevertheless, the reality is that the current workflow adopted in these ports has been slow for services and operations, which negatively affects the normality of exports and imports in the United States.
"The situation of the ports on the west coast, such as the port of Los Angeles, is related to employment matters so the dockworkers unions have adopted a slowdown policy, where low-skilled staff is participating in the operations, which in turn generates a huge port congestion. This slowdown policy started in May last year and apparently it will continue as it seems there will be no solution to this situation in the near future," said Ronald Bown, president of ASOEX.
Bown added that Chile sends about 30% of the country's total exports of fruit destined for the US market to the West Coast. In recent seasons Chile has exported a total of 730,000 tons to California, embarked in an average of 25 ships per season. The table grapes have been the main product exported, so they would be one of the most affected fruits if there were a complete port gridlock.
"To date we have exported a total of 63 tons of fruit to the west coast, which represents a decrease of around 25% when compared to the amount of shipments registered at the same time last season," said the representative of the fruit exporters.
It's important to note that, in terms of volume, the United States is the main destination market for Chilean fruit. During the 2013-2014 season, Chile sent a total of 2,350,543 tons of fruit to different markets, 753,248 tons of which were shipped to the United States. The main exports to the US are of table grapes, apples and blueberries.
Bown said that the shipping companies had continued transporting fruit but were looking for alternatives ports in the same coast, such as the Port of Hueneme in California (Ventura County), among others.
"This has delayed the ships' downloading time. A ship used to be unloaded in about three days. Currently we don't know how long it will take to unload it, it can take up to a week and one has to use three different ports to do it. Additionally, some exporters have adopted the strategy of sending their shipments to the east cost and dispatching their shipments by land, across the entire United States in order to meet business commitments, which entails higher costs and challenges the fruits' status on arrival," he said.
The president of ASOEX said: "This complex situation is creating great uncertainty in the sector, as we don't know how long it will take to unload a ship, and this has trade effects since we don't know when our products will be available for commercialization." He also stated that they were actively monitoring the situation to see how it developed and what implications it would have for the domestic industry.
Source: ASOEX