 |
||||||||
 |
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
Veracruz leaders seek strong ties to bay area
By STEVE HUETTEL, Times Staff Writer TAMPA -- The Tampa Bay area and the state of Veracruz on Mexico's Gulf Coast are natural trading partners, in theory anyway. They're just 1,200 miles apart as the crow flies, about two hours on a jet airliner or two days in a cargo ship. Both regions have vibrant ports. The reality isn't so encouraging. Without any nonstop flights between the Tampa Bay area and Mexico, it took a group from Veracruz 12 hours to make the trip this week. Orange juice and concentrate from Veracruz travel by truck to reach a Tampa customer, Vitality Beverages. "We've got a long way to grow," said Manny Mencia, senior vice president of international trade for Enterprise Florida, at the start of a three-day trade mission Wednesday at the Wyndham Harbour Island Hotel. "We have a lot of opportunity in this market." The same can be said for Mexico and Florida. Of the estimated $275-billion in trade between the United States and Mexico this year, Mencia said, only about 1 percent will involve the Sunshine State. Historically, roads and rails in Mexico have run north and south, said Gary Springer, secretary general of the Gulf of Mexico States Accord, an organization of leaders from Mexican and U.S. states along the gulf. That restricts how much cargo moves through gulf states. "That's begun to change dramatically . . . with ports being privatized and roads completed between Mexico City and the gulf states," he said. "If you don't have seaborne or airborne links, all the Mexican trade goes through Texas." About 60 government and business officials from Veracruz came to Tampa for the conference for formal and informal sessions with nearly 300 counterparts from the Tampa Bay area. The region of some 7-million people is Mexico's third largest state and produces 80 percent of Mexico's petrochemicals, grows a range of crops from citrus to coffee and is a leader in ecotourism. Its ports ship out some of the Port of Tampa's biggest imports, including more than 1-million tons of crushed limestone last year and thousands of Mexican-made Daimler-Chrysler vehicles. In closed-door meetings, Veracruz officials talked with local business executives about potential new markets for their goods. Beckwith Electric Co. of Pinellas Park, which already does 30 percent of its sales in Mexico, got a warm reception for plans to sell equipment that controls voltage on power lines. Veracruz officials pledged to set up training sessions with representatives of Mexico's state-owned power companies and arrange a study on how much the hardware could save utilities nationwide, said company founder Bob Beckwith. Everardo Sousa, economic development secretary for Veracruz, in turn asked Beckwith to consider manufacturing equipment in the region. "The typical path is first for them to sell something, second to produce, third to develop technology," Sousa said. Others talking trade included furniture retailer Rooms to Go, St. Petersburg-Clearwater International Airport and TECO Power Services, the unregulated generation division of TECO Energy, he said. Language usually wasn't a barrier. Tampa port director George Williamson and Mayor Dick Greco spoke in fluent Spanish, most Veracruz officials used perfect English and translators assisted the monolingual. There was just one public glitch. Richard "Buzz" David, Pinellas County's economic development director, told the group that his county has 361 days of sunshine each year. A translator put it into Spanish, and a group from Veracruz guffawed. Instead of "sunshine," the translator used the word for "loneliness." -- Steve Huettel can be reached at huettel@sptimes.com or (813) 226-3384.
 © 2006 • All Rights Reserved • Tampa Bay Times
490 First Avenue South • St. Petersburg, FL 33701 • 727-893-8111 
|
From the Times Business report
From the AP
|
