NAME OF THE PROJECT: Maritime Routes Maps of the Greater Caribbean
HISTORY
The idea of this project came out in 1999 during the Third Special Transportation Committee (STC) meeting of the Association of Caribbean States (ACS), as a result of Pedro Suárez Reyes proposal, on behalf of the Cuban Delegation, to endorse a resolution approved during the ACS Ministries Meeting which encourages to “Unit the Caribbean Region by Air and Sea”.
After multiple presentations and formulations of its technical profile, the Greater Caribbean Project was approved in the XIV STC Meeting, held in Havana, Cuba in September, 2006. It has to be outline that the representatives established to carry out the project with a multinational team on the basis of horizontal technical cooperation which, in turn, produced savings in expensive consultant fees. The agencies designated by the STC were the Central American Commission of Maritime Transport (COCATRAM), Cuba Ministry of Transport (MITRANS) and the Panama Maritime Authority. (AMP).
In January 2007, the Republic of Korea, through its Ambassador in Caracas, Venezuela granted funds by US$ 35,000.00 for the execution of the first phase of the project, which as a fundamental result revealed the existence of 167 maritime services, distributed in 55 shipping lines and attended by 614 vessels in 37 countries and 71 ports of the greater Caribbean, with a capacity of 1,357,992 TEUS; of which 149,649 are reefer.
The compiled information was deployed online through a system developed for consultation via the internet. In September 2009 as part of the 18th meeting of the CET, held in port Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, presented the results achieved in the first stage, which exceeded the expectations of those present who stressed the value of the tool developed, the executing team's performance and the impact it has on the unification of the countries of the Greater Caribbean.
Later as a result of the management of the Mr. Luis Fernando Andrade Secretary General of ACS, was achieved to obtain a donation of US$ 35,000.00, facilitated by the Government of the Republic of Turkey for the implementation of the second phase of the project in August 2010. With a substantial improvement in the IT System, which was developed by the GüeGüe IT Company, the system has been on the web since March 2012, in three languages: English, Spanish and French, the administration allows timely updates real, it relies on google maps and google earth for the presentation of maps, searches for services by country, ports, shipping companies and geographical areas, at the same time it allows combining two or more countries or ports. At the same time that is graphically presenting the routes on the maps, it provides a general description of the service, with the details of the shipping line, type of ship, number of ships, total capacity in TEU, Reefer capacity, ports of call and contacts of the shipping agency in each port.
In May 2015, an AEC fund was transferred for US $ 30,000.00, for the execution of the fourth phase, which included a new system for the presentation of regular services in the Pacific of the countries that make up the Association of Caribbean States, with information on 13 ports distributed on the Pacific coast of Mexico, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama and Colombia. Likewise, International trade information, glossary of terms, liability limits and estimated navigation times were included in both systems (Caribbean and Pacific).
In October 2016, the fifth phase of the project began, with the development of two new systems, Maritime Cruise Routes and Maritime Ferry Routes in the Greater Caribbean, presenting a total of 138 services for the months of October to December of cruises and 68 ferry services.
From March 2020 to April 2021, a platform update process was carried out that included the review of all the regular line, ferry and cruise services, the update of 109 port profiles and the International Trade section. To date, the shipping market segments in the Caribbean region included in this tool are made up of 152 regular container ship services with calls at 94 ports and 56 ferry services, while 33 ship services are included on the Pacific coast with calls in 15 ports.
The regular container ship services are updated daily according to reports from the BlueWater Reporting tool and information from shipping companies. The next goal is to develop Phase VI of the project: "Bulk Services".
OBJETIVES AND JUSTIFICATION
General objective:
Design and create an updated map of the main maritime routes in the Greater Caribbean which will allow exporters, importers, vendors and buyers, foreign or regional either to know when, how, with who and under which conditions they can trade their merchandises.
Specific objectives:
· To increase Intraregional maritime trade and provide information of connections for the transportation of goods.
· To determine if there are zones within the Caribbean region without maritime services.
· To determine if the transportation conditions of current services lines satisfy our expectations of maritime transportation.
JUSTIFICATION
The project approaches the real status of the Caribbean region maritime services and will lay the way to reflect on the need to create new lanes under other possible conditions of transportation.
Multinational Consultant Technical Team
Ministry of Transport of Cuba, MITRANS, represented by Mr. Pedro Suárez Reyes.
Comision Centroamericana de Transporte Maritimo, COCATRAM, represented by Mr. José Dopeso Aparicio.
Association of Caribbean States, ACS, represented by Ms. Safiya Horne-Bique.
Panama Maritime Authority, AMP, represented by Mr. Eric Robinson.
Pedro Suarez Reyes: Author and Coordinator of the project, graduated as Marine Transport Engineer in 1981, in the Institute for Engineers of the Marine Fleet of Odessa City, Ex- Soviet Union; professional of great marine experience, has worked as a Marine Commercial Specialist in shipping companies, Commercial Director and on Board Representative of the Shipbuilder in great operations of international tow. He is Post graduated in Production Management, Commercial Management, Marketing and Public Relations, amongst others. He is now a civil servant for the International Relations Office of Cuba Ministry of Transport and President of the Special Transport Committee of the Caribbean States Association. Phone: (537) 883-1779. Email: esp1.dri@nc.mitrans.gob.cu
Jose Dopeso: Graduated in Business Administration with a major in Production Management at the University of Southwestern Louisiana in 1981. Post graduated in International Trade in 2004; Master in Strategic Management and Logistics in 2005 in the Latin American University of Foreign Trade . Worked as Project Analyst in the Marine Sector Planning and Development Direction and General Secretary Assistant at AMP. He is now Maritime and Ports Affairs Director of the Central American Commission of Maritime Transport. Phone: (505) 2222-2754. Email: jdopeso@cocatram.org.ni
Safiya Horne-Bique. Expert in international development with over fifteen years of experience and expertise in the areas of International Development, Trade and Regional Integration. Mrs. Horne-Bique obtained a Master’s Degree in International Relations from the Universidad Internacional Alliant de la Ciudad de México, and a Bachelor’s Degree in Economics and Management from the University of the West Indies, Barbados. She is currently pursuing a Masters of Law specializing in Public International Law with the University of London.
She has served as an Economist within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, former Senior Programme Officer at the Organization of the Eastern Caribbean States (OECS), Adviser, and now, Director in the Directorate of Trade and Sustainable Development at the Association of Caribbean States (ACS) and manages the organization’s portfolio for Trade and External Economic Relations, Transportation and Tourism. Email: shorne-bique@acs-aec.org
Eric Robinson. Graduated in Business Administration from the University of Panama in 1987. He has a Diploma in National and International Logistics from the Maritime University of Panama. With a vast experience of more than 30 years in Land and Maritime Operations during which he have worked in the areas of Equipment Control, Administrative Affairs, Sales, Projects, as a Customs Agent, warehousing, agency and distribution. From October 2019 to date he has served as Head of Concessions of the Panama Maritime Authority. Email: erobinson@amp.gob.pa
