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Exporting Overseas? Do Your Corporate Research.

THE ECONOMY

U.S. exporters face cargo container shortage at ports

The weak dollar has increased demand for American goods overseas, but a decline in imports means fewer ships are coming from Asia.

By Ronald D. White
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

May 12, 2008

At a time when the struggling U.S. economy needs the biggest boost it can get from booming exports, companies and agricultural producers with American goods bound for overseas can’t find enough empty cargo containers and have to wait weeks to get space on ships headed to Asia.

Only a few years ago, the trade bottleneck was the reverse. At U.S. harbors — particularly the nation’s biggest container complex at the twin ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach — there were too few dockworkers to handle surging imports. Inland rail capacity to the rest of the U.S. was similarly strained.

Now, because of the container problem, U.S. exporters find themselves unable to take full advantage of the competitive edge of a weak U.S. dollar.

For the entire article to go to latimes.com

Okay, so the dollar is down, business is lousy and export reveals itself as the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel. And now there is a shortage of containers to ship goods overseas. Bummer.

But take heart. Corra believes this will right itself out and there will be storage container. After all, exporting goods and even services overseas is the salvation of American business right now. Whether the weak dollar and increased export is a planned strategy to offset the negative trade balance, or merely happenstance opportunity, we’ll leave that conjecture up to you.

However, if you are shipping overseas, you should be conducting corporate research on the companies with whom you are engaged. It’s one thing to write orders, and quite another to get paid. Corra offers business credit reports and will soon be offering international credit reports for businesses around the globe. The website will be up shortly. But call us for information.

Check them out before you do business.

By Gordon Basichis

Gordon Basichis is the Co-Founder of Corra Group, specializing in pre-employment background checks and corporate research. He has been a marketing and media executive and has worked in the entertainment industry, the financial, health care and technology sectors. He is the author of the best selling Beautiful Bad Girl, The Vicki Morgan Story, a non-fiction novel that helped define exotic sexuality in the late twentieth century. He is the author of the Constant Travellers and has recently completed a new book, The Guys Who Spied for China, dealing with Chinese Espionage in the United States. He has been a journalist for several newspapers and is a screenwriter and producer.