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 | | | | Get more mileage out of every marketing dollar, every sales call. PIERS Trade Profiles® is your key to the information you need to identify, approach and sell your best prospects.
While summer lasts … get more mileage out of a new Trade Profiles subscription: get 3 months of import and export data free when you open a 12-month access account by September 22.
Click here or call 1-800-952-3839, ext. 7175. | | |
| | |  | | | How fresh? | | | | PIERS obtains its U.S. trade data under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) which makes federal records (such as bills of lading and manifests filed with Customs) available to the public subject to restrictions aimed at protecting the nation’s security, the competitively sensitive information of businesses, and the privacy of individuals.
Manifest data collected from the U.S. Customs Automated Manifest System (AMS) is compiled and released (on magnetic tape) to PIERS each day. PIERS releases the data through its Web-based PIERS TI® product 14 days after receipt — that is, as soon as federal regulation permits: “not be less than 10 days (exclusive of Saturdays, Sundays, and legal public holidays).”
Put another way, PIERS provides the freshest trade data available.
(BTW: PIERS puts the mandatory hold period to good use, verifying, validating and formatting the government’s data for commercial use.)
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Trade Insights
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Here's a quick survey of current global marketplace developments ... with tips
on resources you can use to turn them to your business advantage.
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PIERS Intelligence@Work:
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Here are the headlines from our most recent e-newsletter. Click
here to have PIERS Intelligence@Work delivered to your e-mailbox FREE.
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Opportunity Alert More Containers for Exports
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A declining U.S. dollar has boosted demand for U.S. exports — but growth in exports has been checked by a shortage of containers. Carriers are responding.
Read more >>
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Strategic Hit Strategic Hit Pinpointing Prospects in Houston
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The Drake Company, providers of complete retail solutions from primary packaging to merchandising systems, uses Trade Profiles to uncover sales opportunities.
Read more >>
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Hot Topic Hot Topic Shrink Wrapping
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The evidence is on supermarket shelves: There’s been a surge in the serious attention paid to sustainable packaging by businesses.
Read more >>
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Snap Shot Snap Shot Ag Trade Is Waterborne
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Flooding in the U.S. Midwest promises to roil the global market for agricultural commodities … and underscores the importance of waterways to ag trade.
See the chart >>
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“Optimizing Searches for Custom Chemical Manufacturing”
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PIERS Market Tip:
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Global demand for chemicals remains strong …
U.S. containerized exports of chemicals should continue to see volume gains at an annual rate of 7.9% this year. With the caveat that 2008 holds an unusually high degree of economic uncertainty, PIERS waterborne import-export trade statistics reveal a positive growth trend for a top U.S. exporting sector that averages almost $120 billion annually and accounts for 10 cents of every dollar in U.S. exports.
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... as brisk M&A activity recasts the list of top players.
The PIERS trade data ranks Dow Chemical as the top U.S. chemicals exporter, with E.I. Dupont de Nemours in the Number 2 slot. Dupont is also the second-ranked U.S. importer of chemicals; the top importer is Lanxess.
… Lanxess??? That’s the Pittsburgh-headquartered U.S. subsidiary of the corporation formed in 2005 when Bayer spun off its chemicals and polymers business. New names on the PIERS lists of top 10 chemicals importers and exporters point to another trend in this sector: global consolidation and realignment.
Sixth-ranked exporter Sabic Innovative Plastic came into being with last May’s acquisition of GE Plastics by Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (SABIC). Eighth-ranked Solutia (which began life as a Monsanto spin-off) emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy this February reorganized as a specialty chemicals company.
The fourth-ranked importer, Degussa, will see its name disappear from next year’s list because, as of September 2007, it’s now the Chemicals Business Area of Evonik Industries. Eighth-ranked importer Potash Import & Chemical has become K&S North America, K&S KALI Division.
Most recently, Dow (the top exporter and number 10 importer) agreed to buy Philadelphia-based Rohm & Haas, a specialty chemical company.
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| Make it work for you: |
CLICK HERE to download FREE
PIERS Sector SnapShot of Chemicals / 4Q07
(in a 431K PDF)
This current statistical summary of U.S. imports and exports of chemicals includes the complete lists of the top 10 exporters and importers, top markets for U.S. exports, and top sources for U.S. imports, and top-trading chemicals commodities.
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| Then use PIERS to identify — and reach — global buyers and sellers. |
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Web-based Trade Profiles Connect gives you anywhere, anytime access to the most recent trade activities and business background info (identified by D&B D-U-N-S Number*) of the companies most active in U.S. import-export … plus a click-to-send link to company contacts’ e-mailboxes, so you can get your message out immediately to decision-makers, each of whom has passed “opt-out” screening.
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| To learn more about PIERS commercial intelligence, click here or call us at +1 800 952 3839, ext. 7175. |
| Click here to have PIERS Market Tips delivered to your e-mailbox FREE. |
PIERS in the News:
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PIERS is the recognized authority on U.S. import-export trade information. Here are recent citations:
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Lloyd’s List coverage of September’s Transpacific Maritime Asia Conference in Shenzhen includes the downbeat U.S. economic forecast provided by PIERS maritime director James Drogalis. Expected dampening of demand coupled with rising fuel costs are prompting shipping lines to cut capacity on Asia-U.S. routes.
Read the Lloyd’s List article >> 
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It’s a good news/bad news story as reported by Manufacturing & Technology News: There was a 17% increase in container exports last year — but those exports were dominated by junk: waste paper and scrap metal top the list of U.S. exports by volume. The report on the Journal of Commerce’s annual ranking of importers and exporters (based on PIERS trade statistics), quotes the JoC’s Peter Leach: “The demand for U.S. products is spreading to smaller manufacturers in the country’s heartland … The trouble with this bright export picture is that as U.S. containerized imports slow, relatively few import containers wind up empty near the sources of U.S. exports.”
Read the story in the Manufacturing News
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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 Miami Herald
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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
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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
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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 Conference, 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
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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
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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
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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
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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 in USA Today
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Click here to read more PIERS in the News items.
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Page Index
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Featured Resource
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Tricks of the Trade
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Intelligence@Work Headlines
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Market Tip
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PIERS in the News
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More Resources
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Trade Links
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More Resources
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Aiding Victims of the “Silent Tsunami”:
As the people at PIERS continue to track ongoing developments in trade in grains and other foodstuffs, we can’t help but be moved by the tragic human dimension of this particular global market story. We invite our readers to join us in supporting relief for the victims of the “silent tsunami” of skyrocketing food prices. The U.N. World Food Program, the world’s frontline organization in the fight against hunger, assists more than 90 million people in over 80 countries with food aid every year. The WFP was uniquely positioned to start distributing food in Myanmar the day after the cyclone hit. Click here to make a donation the World Food Program Myanmar Emergency Relief … or Click here to direct your aid to the WFP “fill the cup” program. It takes just 25 US cents to fill one of the "Red Cups" the WFP uses to give hungry children a regular school meal of porridge, rice or beans. US$15 would feed 10 children for a week.
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FREE Download:
Journal of Commerce Top 100 Importers/Exporters
Get your digital copy of the JoC annual Top 100 Importers and Exporters. In addition to analyzing trends in U.S. trade via ocean container transport, the JoC Top 100 ranks importing and exporting companies by number of 20-foot-equivalent units, or TEUs shipped, based on data from PIERS, a JoC sister company. Click here to download.
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To Market, To Market … by Water
Heavy rains in the Midwest closed the upper Mississippi from June 12 through July 8, stalling barges carrying grain bound for the Gulf ports that handle approximately 48% of total U.S. grain exports — underscoring the point of the U.S. Department of Agriculture report, “A Reliable Waterway System Is Important to Agriculture.” The USDA report, released in May, makes substantial use of PIERS data on ag imports (84.5% waterborne) and exports (79.4% waterborne).
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NEW!
PIERS Argentine Trade Data
PIERS has expanded its international import-export database resources to include current and historical data on Argentina’s overland, water- and airborne cross-border commerce with the rest of the world. With this addition, the PIERS Latin American database now includes the top seven of the 12 South American national economies — Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Venezuela, Chile, Peru, and Ecuador — as well as U.S.-NAFTA partner Mexico. For more information about PIERS Argentine or other international trade databases, go to www.piers. com/piersproducts.aspx, or call +1 800 952 3839, ext. 7175.
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Energy Outlook to 2030
The Annual Energy Outlook from the Energy Information Administration presents a projection and analysis of U.S. energy supply, demand, and prices through 2030. The June 25 release, including complete documentation and cases examining energy markets, is available here on the EIA website.
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ITA Finance Guide Updated
The International Trade Administration has published an updated version of the Trade Finance Guide: A Quick Reference for U.S. Exporters, created expressly for small- and mid-sized enterprises.
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Trade Links
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More global trade information sources:
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Commonwealth Business Media, PIERS parent company
The Journal of Commerce, PIERS affiliate
Official Export Guide,
PIERS affiliate
Custom House Guide,
PIERS affiliate
Alibaba
Bankers’ Association for Finance & Trade (BAFT)
CalTrade Report
Export-Import Bank of the U.S.
Federation of International Trade Associations (FITA)
Management Dynamics
NEXCO
Southern U.S. Trade Association (SUSTA)
Thomas Global Register
U.S. Customs
U.S. Government Export Portal
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