Guadalajara, Jal. “We are focused on turning the Guadalajara airport into the main Latin American hub in terms of cargo,” said Federico Lepe Montoya, head of Strategic Planning at the Guadalajara World Trade Center (GWTC), the company that operates the cargo terminal at the international airport. from this city.
In an interview with El Economista, the also president of the International Logistics Commission of the Council of Industrial Chambers of Jalisco (CCIJ), indicated that they are currently working on the development of a switching center that would allow the handling of cargo in the region to be tripled. present, in the next four or five years.
“Switching center means that you have the ability that a product that arrives in an airline goes to another airline and leaves, but we need to have the efficiency that you have in Hong Kong, in Frankfurt, in Beijing or in Singapore to, in in a short time, make the transfers of the product so that it goes to Europe, Asia or the United States ”, he explained.
He commented that, for now, the cargo terminal at the Guadalajara airport handles 175,000 tons per year, and with the switching center, the projection is to dispatch half a million tons in 2025 or 2026.
He indicated that derived from saturation problems and high costs in maritime transport, Latin American countries such as Chile, Colombia and Peru looked in Guadalajara for an option to dispatch their merchandise to China.
He said that “at this moment, there is a requirement that is costing me a lot to respond to Chile, which is 200 tons per week to export to the United States and Asia.”
“I have calls from Chile, primarily, of their great concern about the situation that they, the outlet they have to Asia, which is their main export point, have a sea-air export through Long Beach, California, but that port it is congested; they are very worried because there is no capacity ”.
Federico Lepe said that he is currently in communication with the Chilean Fruit Exporters Association, with Agap, which are the producers and exporters of perishables in Peru, and with Colombia, which is a large exporter of flowers.
“This switching center is a response to the need that South American countries have for their exports.”
Reference-www.eleconomista.com.mx