When Juan Manuel Santos takes over as Colombia’s president in August, the Harvard-educated economist will continue many of the same pro-business, pro-U.S. policies of President Alvaro Uribe that helped transform their South America country into a magnet for foreign investment. But Santos, 58, plans to boost emphasis on creating jobs and modernizing the economy, now that the two-term Uribe has wrestled down Colombia’s once severe security problems — with Santos’ input as his former defense minister. Those are among the upbeat conclusions from participants at WorldCity’s Global Connections event held… Read More
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WorldCity President Ken Roberts: Expect to see a new string of monthly increases in 2010
Turnaround in U.S. trade gains momentum
For the first time since October 2008, U.S. trade grew month over month in December, according to annual trade data released Wednesday (Feb. 10) by the Census Bureau and analyzed by WorldCity.
U.S. trade in December 2009 was $18.58 billion greater than in December 2008, a solid 8.21 percent growth rate. The $244.83 billion total for the month nevertheless still fell about 7 percent shy of the December 2007 record of $262.62 billion.
But to provide a sense of how remarkable 13 consecutive months of falling U.S. trade is, when trade first fell $33 billion in November 2008, it broke a string of at least 69 consecutive months of gains, back to January 2003 — that’s as far back as the data WorldCity uses allows.
Expect 2010 to be a quite solid but not record-setting year for U.S. trade, with gains probably in the range of 12-15 percent, coming on the heels of a year when trade fell 20 percent.
Of the Top 25 Customs districts, 19 showed gains in December, including for the first time the Top 5 — Los Angeles (ending a 14-month run of losses), New York (14 months of losses), Houston (13), Detroit (16, the nation’s longest run) and New Orleans (13) — as well as No. 10 Savannah (13), No. 14 Buffalo (14), No. 16 Dallas (13), No. 21 Ogdensburg (13), N.Y., No. 23 San Juan (four of the last six months have been positive), No. 24 Tampa (13) and No. 25 Port Arthur, Texas (12).
Still yet to emerge are No. 13 Philadelphia, No. 17 San Diego (although it was positive in November and only marginally negative in December), No. 18. Charleston, No. 19 Norfolk, No. 20 Great Falls, Mont., and No. 23 Baltimore.
Looking at the United States’ top trade partners, there are many similarities, perhaps not surprisingly so.
Of the Top 10 U.S. trade partners, No. 1 Canada, No. 4 Japan, No. 5 Germany, No. 7 South Korea and No. 10 Brazil all broke into positive ground in December. No. 2 China, No. 3 Mexico and No. 6 United Kingdom broke into positive ground in November. The only Top 10 trade parnter still riding a string of months with falling trade is No. 8 France.
Among Top 25 trade partners, another seven nations showed gains in their trade for the first time, when comparing December 2009 to December 2008: No. 12 Belgium, No. 14 Venezuela, No. 18 India, No. 21 Australia, No. 22 Hong Kong, No. 23 Israel and No. 24 Thailand. No. 13 Singapore’s trade has been postive four consecutive months, No. 16 Malaysia and No. 17 Switzerland went into the black in November as did No. 20 Nigeria.
Still running in the red are No. 11 the Netherlands, No. 15 Italy, No. 19 Saudi Arabia and No. 25 Ireland.
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