Image courtesy of the Port of Long Beach.
The Port of Long Beach (POLB) announced Tuesday that Mayor Robert Garcia will be traveling with a delegation on a weeklong business development trip to meet with executives of the world’s three largest shipping lines, A.P. Moller-Maersk Group in Copenhagen, Denmark, Mediterranean Shipping company in Geneva, Switzerland and the third-largest, CMA CGM, in Marseilles, France.
Delegation members will include Harbor Commission President Doug Drummond, Commission Vice President Rich Dines, Commissioner Lou Anne Bynum and Harbor Department Chief Executive Jon Slangerup.
The group will give Port customers an update on the impact of the recent labor negotiations and will divulge what steps are being taken to handle the congestion and improve the efficiency of operations, according to the release.
“It’s incredibly important that we let our customers know that despite the labor negotiation process and congestion, the Port of Long Beach is still the best place to do business on the West Coast,” said Mayor Garcia in a statement.
President Drummond iterated that the goal of the trip is to reach out to industry leaders and customers to address their concerns and speak of the near future.
“We have turned a corner on congestion and we are committed to making even more improvements to the supply chain,” he said in a statement.
The delegation will discuss the yet-to-be-ratified five-year contract for dockworker labor, according to the release, and the decision by federal regulators to allow the POLB and Port of Los Angeles to work together as well as the recently implemented “gray fleet” of chassis to improve efficiencies for truck drivers moving cargo.
In addition to the shipping lines, the group will also meet with representatives of the Port of Marseilles along with the Baltic and International Maritime Council while in Copenhagen, the world’s largest international shipping association, and in Geneva, will visit the World Trade Organization.
The POLB is one of the world’s premier seaports with 140 shipping lines connecting Long Beach to 217 seaports, handling $180 billion in trade annually and supporting hundreds of thousands of jobs in Southern California.