Brokers Seek Exporter Imbalance Solution

(Journal of Commerce Online)

Trade group says members may be able to manage containers into better position

Freight brokers are studying whether they can help correct a steep imbalance in transportation equipment availability that is hurting efforts of U.S. exporters to get goods to overseas markets.

The Transportation Intermediaries Association asked executives at the group’s annual meeting last week in Tucson, Ariz., to look at whether its broker members can coordinate their transport management and information on shipments to help get ocean containers in better position for shippers at U.S. inland points to use them.

American exporters, particularly agriculture shippers, are showing growing frustration this year with the lack of the containers they need to get goods to gateways. Containership operators say they want to serve the U.S. export market. But rates for the shipments and pricing for imports remain too low, they say, and won’t support the cost of getting containers to export markets that are often far from inbound destination points. Read more here.