KC SmartPort leads way in boosting foreign trade

By Rick Alm
The Kansas City Star
October 25, 2005

Mexican authorities have signed a non-binding agreement aimed at fostering increased trade through a new inland port in San Antonio.

The former Kelly Air Force Base in San Antonio, closed by the military in 2001, has been recast as KellyUSA , a business park and intermodal cargo hub aimed at moving freight south of the border by truck, rail and air.

The facility is operated by the Greater Kelly Development Authority , a state agency, which the agreement names as a coordinating body for inland port and transportation facilities around the nation that are similarly tapping into NAFTA trade opportunities.

Kansas City is one of them. But KC SmartPort President Chris Gutierrez said the Kansas City area was way ahead of the competition.

The nonprofit SmartPort organization promotes international trade in the region and is the lead agency in a plan to establish a Mexican customs facility in the West Bottoms near Kemper Arena .

“Every city in the country is developing an inland port,” Gutierrez said Monday of San Antonio’s announcement. “We welcome the competition.”

Gutierrez said Kansas City’s effort stood apart because it was the only U.S. city the Mexican government had agreed to negotiate with — so far — for a customs operation on U.S. soil. And he speculated that a Mexican customs pilot project here was likely to be the only one in the Midwest, with similar operations eventually envisioned for the East and West coasts.

Under this area’s arrangement, freight would be inspected by Mexican authorities in Kansas City and sealed in containers for movement directly to Mexican destinations with fewer costly border delays. The arrangement would become even more lucrative when Asian markets that shipped through Mexican ports were figured into the mix.

“We applaud the efforts of Kansas City and the Mexican government in developing a Mexican customs facility there,” said Jorge Canavati, marketing director for KellyUSA.

He said a Mexican customs function for KellyUSA “is something that is still far away.… We may be looking at that” in the future.

In the meantime Canavati said KellyUSA-based working groups were to be formed to help with U.S. warehouse and transportation networks for Mexican-bound goods.

“We’re going to be a think tank and nuts-and-bolts working group for the multimodal corridors, and Kansas City will be part of that,” he said. “Kansas City is invited to the table.”

Kansas City already has much of its Mexican trade network in place.

During the past year Kansas City has signed cooperative agreements with the Mexican deep-water port cities of Manzanillo and Lazaro Cardenas, and the Mexican state of Michoacan, aimed at fostering business and government partnerships to move goods more efficiently to and from Mexico through Kansas City.

Earlier this month Kansas City signed similar working agreements with Winnipeg and the Canadian province of Manitoba.

Meanwhile, locally based Kansas City Southern earlier this year acquired Mexico’s Texas Mexican Railway Co ., which eventually is seen as a cargo corridor passing through the former Richards-Gebaur airfield — also planned for redevelopment as an intermodal transit and cargo hub with a Mexican customs component.

Last week Mexico’s BancoMext foreign trade bank announced in Kansas City the establishment of a branch operation here to attract U.S. investors.

Also, former Kansas City Council member George Blackwood recently was elected president of the nonprofit North America Super Corridor Coalition .

First glance

¦ Kansas City is the only U.S. city the Mexican government has agreed to negotiate with for a customs operation on U.S. soil.

Reproduced with permission of The Kansas City Star © Copyright 2006 The Kansas City Star. All rights reserved. Format differs from original publication. Not an endorsement.