Exporters urged to avoid unloading goods at US West Coast

[HiSoLowSoNoSo]

866 MILLION pairs of shoes held up..........probably they're fakes!!

Anyway.....3 pairs of shoes for every American citizen......and all from Thailand...........yeh..ok......next!!

Maybe its 866 Thousand pair of shoes?

[German Viking]

I work for a shoe manufacturer in Thailand and the US is the largest consumer by far. The EU is a distant second.

Are you the sole representative?

Because of the high cost of labor in Thailand, most shoes are now made in China, Indonesia, Vietnam and Cambodia .

Maybe the labour costs are not the main problem in LOS, but probably all the tea money in top, on the short way to the port, until the shoes are ready aboard to getting shipped.

[German Viking]

L.A. area docks are owned by Arabs.

God bless America.

[car720]

For example, 866 million pairs of shoes imported by the US, of which 68 per cent of them would be unloaded at Los Angeles and Long Beach, said Ms Jirapaphan.

Wow, does everyone in the US now wear shoes from Thailand?

I work for a shoe manufacturer in Thailand and the US is the largest consumer by far. The EU is a distant second.

This is not about you or where you work man, but I would like to point out a paradox.

I was reading an article in some mag or another about how the US is desperate to reform a manufacturing base yet just recently I visited some friends of friends in BKK up some back alley somewhere and was amazed to see a man and his wife and 3 young kids all sitting on a cold cement floor assembling sports type shoes that would eventually have a tick or something attached to them.

I forget how much they told me they were paid by some guy who comes by and picks them up but it was a pittance.

I cannot help wondering just how many middle men along the way, including transhippers, made a profit from those shoes so even considering the high cost of labour in the west I still wonder why they cannot be made in the USA.

[Somtamnication]

For example, 866 million pairs of shoes imported by the US, of which 68 per cent of them would be unloaded at Los Angeles and Long Beach, said Ms Jirapaphan.

Wow, does everyone in the US now wear shoes from Thailand?

Didn't know Imelda Marcos lived in the West Coast.

[Ricardo]

I work for a shoe manufacturer in Thailand and the US is the largest consumer by far. The EU is a distant second.

Are you the sole representative?

Or the Achilles Heel of the company ?

Surely he'd be in 'upper' management ?

[wabothai]

Thai Trade center in LA has a complaint about poor mangement of westcoast ports.

What a bunch of hogwash !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Who is the Thai trade center idiot?

Further comment will result in removal from TV.

[unclueng]

The highest paid people in the USA are Doctors, Lawyers, and Longshoremen.

[ratcatcher]

I work for a shoe manufacturer in Thailand and the US is the largest consumer by far. The EU is a distant second.

Are you the sole representative?

Or the Achilles Heel of the company ?

Surely he'd be in 'upper' management ?

I think your comment is laced with sarcasm.

[recycler]

For example, 866 million pairs of shoes imported by the US, of which 68 per cent of them would be unloaded at Los Angeles and Long Beach, said Ms Jirapaphan.

Wow, does everyone in the US now wear shoes from Thailand?

I work for a shoe manufacturer in Thailand and the US is the largest consumer by far. The EU is a distant second.

Yes but shipping almost 3 pairs of shoes per US inhabitant to stock stores before the spring sale is a bit out of proportion.

I think this news item also tells us a lot about the poor counting skills of Thais even at the ministry of commerce....

To put this in perspective, there fit about 10,000 normal pairs of shoes in a 40 ft shipping container so for this cargo 86,600 40 ft containers would be required and a fleet of about 20 of the wolds biggest containers ships!

Edited February 1, 2015 by recycler

[zaphod reborn]

For example, 866 million pairs of shoes imported by the US, of which 68 per cent of them would be unloaded at Los Angeles and Long Beach, said Ms Jirapaphan.

Wow, does everyone in the US now wear shoes from Thailand?

Didn't know Imelda Marcos lived in the West Coast.

Try Makiki Heights on Oahu, Hawaii. Not West Coast USA for the geographically uninformed. Hawaii has its own history of dock worker labor strikes. Back in the day before extensive air cargo, a longshoreman strike would cripple the state's economy.

[NeverSure]

Getting away from counting shoes, LOL, the ports at LA and Long Beach are in fact congested and it's a problem. The idea of shipping around to the East Coast is however difficult. It's nearly 3,000 miles in a straight line coast to coast, and going down through the Panama or Suez Canal and back up would surely be more than twice that. Then there's the return trip.

The ships would be far better off waiting offshore for a few days if needed and then unloading. Even going to San Francisco, Oakland, Portland or Seattle would just clog them up and then the goods would have to be shipped back by trucks or trains causing even more delay and congestion.

The ports at LA and Long Beach have expanded several times and maybe it's time to do it again, although production of goods is increasingly shifting back to the US from Asia due to the cost of two way shipping and the increasing use of robotics in the US to replace cheap labor. This is one of the reasons that China's export growth is slowing.

[Berkshire]

This has been going on for months and really gets very little press here in Los Angeles

but it is a big problem , the dockworkers have "slowed down" and the back up going in and out of LA is HUGE

last time this happened the shippers put the containers on the train and sent them to Texas ,

Nice idea but there was major damage on the contents from 1500 miles of bouncing on the train,

the shippers were not told this was going to happen and packed the containers like they always do for a softer sea journey ,

They were also offloading in Baja California.....

It'd be great if you could update us on what's really happening over there. It seems that dockworkers on the west coast are constantly demanding something. A couple of decades ago, there was a strike that nearly crippled commerce in the Pacific. Most of these union guys are already getting paid huge....what do they want now?

[maidee]

a 307% import tax, is what thai goods should receive anywhere inthe world

same same as they do with so many goods that they don't even produce in this country