| PIERS Newsroom
|
|
| Announcements
|
May 2008 - PIERS
Now Offers Argentine Import-Export Trade Data
April 2008 - Pervasive Software – PeopleForce Team to Deliver PIERS Master Data Management Solution
April 2008 - Global Sources, B2B Marketers, Brings PIERS Trade Profiles® to China’s Exporters
March 2008 -- PIERS Names Wael Jarous Vice President of PIERS Commercial Sales
January 2008 - Lenny Corallo Appointed President and Chief Operating Officer of PIERS
January 2008 - PIERS Launches Email Feature Connecting Global Buyers and Sellers
October 2007 - PIERS TI™ Opens Web Access to Latest U.S. Export Trade Data
October 2007 - PIERS Names Theresa A. Harrison Director, Government Relations
October 2007 - PIERS TI™ Opens Web Access to Latest U.S. Export Trade Data
PIERS Trade Profiles Version 1.9 Launched
December 2006 - PIERS Trade Horizons Reports: Global Economy ‘Rebalancing’ Blunts Impact of U.S. Slow-Down
October 2006- PIERS Launches Trade Finance Online
October 2006- Yantian International Containers Terminals Selects PIERS to Supply Import-Export Data
October 2006- PIERS Reports a Tenfold Increase in China Sales
June 2007 - PIERS Reveals Sector SnapShot of Home Textiles / 2Q07
October
2006 - PIERS Trade Profiles Version 1.7 Launched
August
2006 - PIERS Trade Horizons Reports Trade Gap Continues to Widen -- Even as
U.S. Exports are Projected to Grow at a Faster Rate than Imports
July 2006 - United
Business Media acquires Commonwealth Business Media, Inc.
February 2006
- Trade Profiles Pay-Per-View is Now Available
December 2005 - A Message from PIERS President Brendan McCahill
November
2005 - PIERS Trade Horizons Reports on 2Q05
November
2005 - PIERS Announces Trade Profiles
October
2005 - PIERS Launches New Web Site
May 2005 - PIERS
Unveils New Trade Data Products at Recent Users’ Conference
March 2005 - PIERS
Appoints Simon Wong to head its Hong Kong Sales Office
February
2005 - East Port Technology to Sell PIERS Trade Information Products in China
February 2005
- Commonwealth Business Media Obtains Hong Kong High Court Order against Jacky
Ng.
June 2004 - PIERS Unveils New Source for U.S. Trade Intelligence on the Web.
January 2004 - Message
from PIERS President, Brendan McCahill Sr.
|
| PIERS Online Newsletter for the Global Business
|
Now Available:
Intelligence@Work Volume 6 Issue 2
|
|
To access Archives and view previous issues please click here.
|
|
PIERS in the News:
|
A Miami Herald profile of the largest cargo line operating out of the Port of Miami, Seaboard Marine, cites PIERS container carrier statistics. The top container carrier in international trade via Florida ports has just signed a new lease that will bring up to $26-million in capital improvements to Miami port facilities.
Read the story in the Miami Herald 
|
The Star-Ledger (New Jersey), reports a that bumper crop of dried peas and lentils is being exported out of the Port of New York and New Jersey. So far this year, the port’s volume of legume exports is up 425% — a result of UN World Food Program efforts to get protein aid to people in the poorest and most unstable areas of Africa. PIERS is the source for shipment details.
Read the story in The Star-Ledger
|
Houston is booming as other U.S. cities are
contracting — and not just because the price of oil
is up, reports Bloomberg. Growing demand for
health care by aging baby boomers and immigrants
plus increased port traffic as the declining dollar
drives trade are also helping to make Houston metro
the country’s top job-producing area. Still, as
PIERS statistics bear out, oil and oil-related
imports and exports are what keeps the Houston Ship
Channel busy.
Read the Bloomberg report
|
Speculation on this year’s shipping season along
trans-Pacific trade lanes was rife as the industry
gathered for the 8th Annual Trans-Pacific Maritime
Conference sponsored in March by The Journal of
Commerce, a PIERS affiliate. PortNews, a
Russian industry news outlet, surveyed analysts on
their forecasts — including Michael Andrews, PIERS
chief economist, who projects trans-Pacific exports
will increase by 11.8% in 2008, while trans-Pacific
imports will grow 3.5%.
Read the story in the PortNews
|
The Record Online Edition, NorthJersey.com, reports on collateral damage of the housing bust: Furniture retailers’ going-out-of-business sales are creating a glut in the liquidators’ market. The Record cites information provided by PIERS on slowing imports of furniture and the recent bankruptcies of two of last year’s top 10 importers — Bombay Co., and Levitz — as well as focusing on seven now-shuttered Domain stores in N.J.
Read the story in The Record
|
A shortage of shipping containers threatens to limit U.S. exports — one of the few bright spots in an otherwise troubled economy, reports the Wall Street Journal in an article that cites PIERS container import-export statistics. Finding boxes used to be easy when U.S. trade traffic tended to be one-way: incoming. Shippers had to scramble to fill the boxes for the return trip to pick up more imports. Now shippers are charging a premium — where the boxes are available at all.
Read the WSJ story
|
With fuel prices soaring, imports falling, and competition heating up, Southern California’s twin ports are in the doldrums, reports the Los Angeles Times. Local opposition to expansion of Los Angeles and Long Beach port facilities will hamper efforts to capitalize on the economy’s rebound, expected in 2009 — while East Coast ports continue to grow their share of Asian cargo, according to Michael Andrews, chief economist for PIERS.
Read the story in the LA Times
|
Last year saw a marked rise in import alerts issue by the Food and Drug Administration, reports USA Today, with the FDA blocking imports of 11 types of questionable foods and drugs. At least two alerts had substantial impact, says USA Today, citing trade data from PIERS Global Intelligence Solutions: Imports of Chinese wheat gluten fell to 2.4 million pounds in September-November (compared to 14.7 million imported during the same period a year earlier), while imports of Chinese catfish dropped 68%.
Read the story
|
The Associated Press has investigated the Food and Drug Administration’s effectiveness in
screening seafood imported from China. The AP found one of every four shipments from China between
last October and this May slipped through without inspection despite an FDA “import alert” requiring
that every shipment be held until it passed a laboratory test. The AP’s source: import data from PIERS.
Read the story in the Los Angeles Times
|
PIERS also helped the AP trace the unchecked route taken by toothpaste tainted with a poisonous chemical
used in antifreeze from China through Tacoma and Seattle to the Metro State Prison in south Atlanta.
Read the story in the Washington Post
|
PIERS collaborated with Textile World on a detailed survey of textile import-export trade
through U.S. seaports. Among other findings: fabric, fiber and yarn are net exports for the U.S.;
apparel, home furnishings and floor coverings, as well as textile machinery and parts, were net imports.
Tables covering port traffic are included.
Read the story
|
Can you imagine a world without garbage? The trick, according to Fortune/CNN Money.com, is to achieve zero waste with 100% recycling.
That’s the goal of U.S. municipalities such as San Francisco (leading the country with a 68% recycling rate) and companies (including Wal-Mart,
Hewlett-Packard, Dell), eager to cash in on growing global demand for reclaimed resources.
Indeed, as PIERS reports, wastepaper is the U.S.’s top export by volume to China.
Read the story
|
Ashley Furniture is thriving while the U.S. furniture industry posts steep losses and factory closings,
reports the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. The Wisconsin-headquartered furniture maker’s success is the
result of aggressive retailing and — as PIERS data documents — some strategic Asia sourcing.
Read the story
|
She the wealthiest woman in China — maybe the wealthiest self-made female billionaire in the world —
and she built her fortune on shipping waste paper from the U.S. and Europe back to China for recycling.
As reported by the New York Times, the world’s paper trade is dominated by Zhang Yin’s companies —
including America Chung Nam, America’s top exporter by volume, according to PIERS.
Read the story
*Note: PIERS covered America Chung Nam in its newsletter, Intelligence @ Work, in 2003.
Read the story
|
In the dog days of summer, dockworkers (carefully)
handling cargoes of fresh, ripe bananas especially enjoy Bonita’s
climate-controlled operation at the New York Container Terminal, reports New
Jersey’s Star-Ledger. Bananas from Ecuador make up 17% of the Port
of NY-NJ produce trade, according to PIERS.
Read the Story
|
The trade of the world moves in containers, avers Forbes.com
in a report on the top 10 U.S. importers and exporters – drawn from the PIERS
top 100, assembled under the direction of Dr. Michael Andrews, chief economist
for PIERS.
Read the Story
|
Recent discounts on container shipping from Asia are yielding savings for
Charlie Woo: the owner of Megatoys uses 2,000 40-foot containers a year
to fill his Los Angeles warehouse with imported toys. It’s good news for
importers, but a sign that the shipping industry may be headed for a slow
down, reports the Los Angeles Times. PIERS data is cited to show that
future growth in trade won’t keep pace with recent years’ double-digit
rates.
Read the story
|
Energy prices may be up, but they haven’t depressed U.S. consumer
demand, reports Market News International ... as PIERS trade data
documents a 13% jump in U.S. imports in April as compared to the same
month a year ago. Port executives say U.S. retailers expect lively
consumption to continue.
Read the story
|
Online bidding for U.S. junked cars has crossed borders, raising
the stakes for American junkyards and auto-parts salvage operations,
reports the Washington Post, citing PIERS trade statistics that
show a 19-fold increase in salvage vehicle exports in the last three years.
Read the story
|
“Port Workers Uneasy,” reports the Bergen N.J. Record,
which cites PIERS information that P&O Ports, the company bought by
Dubai Ports World for $6.8 billion, handled 520,000 containers at the
Port Newark Container Terminal in 2005.
Read the story
|
PIERS is also cited in the Bergen Record's coverage of a suit filed by State of New Jersey
February 23 to block the Dubai company from taking control of the Port Newark terminal.
Read the story
|
Like many cases in the murky world of timber trade, this smuggling operation involved businessmen
in different countries sending money and wood across many borders. The Environmental Investigation
Agency used PIERS data to trace the illicit traffic in an endangered Southeast Asia hardwood known as
merbau, reports the Washington Post.
Read the story
|
December U.S. exports flattened while imports swelled 10%, according to PIERS data, as reported in Market News International.
Read the story
|
On the eve of the holiday retail season, Market News International
reported rising exports fueled by an Asian appetite for raw materials and domestic consumer spending.
PIERS supplies the trade data on East Coast imports and exports.
Read the story
|
Bloomberg reports that the Port of Seattle has been adding jobs faster than it has since the 1960s.
Seattle is the beneficiary of surging imports from Asia and growing congestion in southern California ports.
Traffic through Seattle surged 38% in the first half, ranking it among the 10 busiest U.S. ports, Los Angeles-Long Beach saw only a 1.6% increase,
according to PIERS.
Read the story
|
The lessons of last year's congestion at West Coast ports have not been lost
on top retailers relying on imports to meet demand from holiday shoppers, reports Investor's Business Daily
in a story that draws on PIERS trade volume statistics. Ports, railroads, and shipping companies also say they've
taken steps to avoid a new backup. Still, inadequate cargo-moving infrastructure
is a looming problem.
Read the story
|
BusinessWeek reports that the costs of transporting goods to
market are up and likely to continue rising through the next decade. Congestion
– at the nation’s ports and on the rails and roads that carry shipments inland
– has reversed the downward trend that began in 1987 with transport
deregulation and the push for “just in time” operations. PIERS is cited for
predicting that inbound container traffic will hit another record in 2005, up
by 6.7% after surging 16% in 2004.
Read the story
|
The New York Times reports a boost in tourism to Japan resulting from a growing
international taste for sake. In particular, tours of sake breweries -- call
kura -- are drawing new American aficionados of the traditional rice-based
alcoholic beverage. The Times cites PIERS trade intelligence: "American sake
imports in 2004 were up by about 30 percent from 2003, part of a steady
increase since 1994."
Read the story
|
