Our local politicians and city manager, I imagine with the approval of the city council, invested over $2.5 million in a structure to house a branch of the Mexican Customs.
This branch was intended to process cargo to Mexican cities where there are no Mexican Customs offices.
The project was supposed to generate hundreds of thousands of dollars in profits from the sale of jet fuel, landing fees and freight handling to load and unload aircraft.
They are now bragging about the facility where the Mexican government allows only a few firms (not the general public) who ship parts or components that will become part of a product, which will then be subsequently exported, to get a permit from the Mexican government to have their goods inspected.
These goods come directly from the Laredo Airport and are bound to one of six Custom houses in Mexico.
Since the products allowed are not produced in Laredo, they would have to come from somewhere else.
It is my opinion that we are trying to sell a service that nobody will buy. It is very expensive and time consuming.
If the cargo comes by the air, the owner would have to pay for two takeoffs and landings, since most of the fuel is consumed in takeoff and landing, plus demurrage charges while the cargo is inspected, plus handling charges.
Wouldn’t it be more cost effective for the shipper to fly the cargo directly from origin to destination for half of the cost?
If the cargo comes via truck, it would be handled the way it is handled now.
It would go to a custom broker’s warehouse where he does not pay handling, clear customs at the bridge and flown out of the Laredo Airport or shipped via truck, since all the airports (except Chihuahua) are very close.
I believe our politicians have wasted millions of our tax dollars for their failure “to do the math.”
They tried to build a rail bridge to charge $50 per car when one of the railroads was paying nothing because they owned their own bridge and the other was paying $10 per car.
The traffic from Central America never came because it would have cost shippers two or three times more than what they were paying via their traditional routes.
Now they are spending $120K to sponsor a gathering of logisticians that will not bring anything good for the city except maybe occupy a few hotel rooms and a gathering that is being promoted by the same party that organized the Central American junkets.
Few in the business community know about it.
Sincerely,
Paul Cavazos
8 comments:
How comes the peoples just stand by and watch as the politicos do what they want? Eh? How comes?
Here, more salt to the wound. With this continued leadership(or lack thereof), SA and the Valley will have to send out THANK YOU cards to Laredo leaders on a daily basis.
Laredo: The Gooch of S.Texas.
http://www.mysanantonio.com/business/business_columnists/david_hendricks/article/S-A-Airport-aims-to-continue-international-4034040.php
http://www.themonitor.com/news/local/article_09947f66-1970-11e2-a2ea-0019bb30f31a.html
http://www.themonitor.com/news/local/article_3b92b89a-27a1-11e2-bf90-001a4bcf6878.html
It's been a while since I've been closely involved with this aspect of business, but my recollection is that planes bound for Mexico need to land where Mexican customhouses are located if their actual destination doesn't have an office. So, there would be no additional landing/take off fuel costs. If the Mexican govt. lets this Laredo structure serve as an "in bond" type of structure where plane can "clear" mexican customs and then proceed it could save shippers tremendous amounts of $$ given our geographical location. But, as anything with the City, we'll see. But I'm willing to give them benefit of the doubt on this because it sounds good.
As Dr. Landeck would say "McAllen is eating our lunch". McAllen is also in big trouble with a convention center that is losing big money.
The idea in logistics improvement is to eliminate steps in the process, not add to them. This process is a cost adder/extra step.
Hey, not every business venture in McAllen is a winner. I know of the Anzalduas bridge losing money, so the idea that most of the vehicular/truck traffic leaving the way of Donna hasn't happened.
However, they've managed to revitalize their downtown (WITH DTWN VENDOR INPUT!!!), attract more business, and add more jobs to their local economies.
Laredo ain't done squat. They failed miserably with El Portal, yielded nothing with the Central American trip(The same can be said with Saudi Arabia), and have given you a half-assed toilet paper-white baseball stadium and a golf course no one ever really wanted. No risk, no results.
Don't forget the bat-filled LEA which stands empty most of the year while the latest basketball team in town will play at TAMIU. That, after the city paid over $100,000 for the LEA's basketball court.
LEA is not empty most of the year. There are always events happening every month. I think you have confused it with Unitrade Stadium. That place has been empty since baseball season ended. What happened to the 200 events it was going to bring in annually? Also, how is it generating revenue if the building isn't being rented out? The tax payer really got conned on this deal. As for the basketball court, the LEA should be making money off this investment to recoup it's costs and not give it away for free to the schools like the council members want.
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