Guadalajara cargo terminal bets on the Asian market

Guadalajara, Jal. With the projection of reaching 170,000 tons mobilized by the end of 2022, and considered the second largest airport in the country in terms of cargo, behind Mexico City, the Guadalajara air terminal will bet its growth in this area on the handling of merchandise to and from the Asian continent.

In an interview with El Economista, Federico Lepe, head of Strategic Planning at Guadalajara World Trade Center (GWTC), the company that operates the cargo terminal at the Guadalajara airport, commented that together with the GAP, the city’s airport concessionaire, they will reinforce negotiations with Singapore Cargo to establish a direct air route with that Asian nation.

In order to take advantage of the opportunities that nearshoring or supply chain relocation entails, he said, it is necessary to have greater capacity in the management of inputs from Asia.

The also president of the International Logistics Commission of the Council of Industrial Chambers of Jalisco said that another of the objectives of specifying the route with Singapore Cargo is to achieve a direct merchandise exchange with Japan.

Federico Lepe stressed that Singapore would act as an “escape valve” for the exchange of goods with the Asian continent “because any regulation or provision that occurs in China that could block the normal flow of goods that comes from Hong Kong and Shanghai to Guadalajara Well, it turns us upside down.”

alternate ports

Another project that could boost cargo handling in Guadalajara, and which is currently awaiting approval from the Chinese government, is to incorporate the port of Manzanillo and the Guadalajara airport as alternate terminals to export merchandise from Chile and Peru to China.

The Chilean government has already asked the Chinese government to incorporate Manzanillo and Guadalajara as alternate ports for the dispatch of goods from Latin America, since the only ones authorized so far –Long Beach and Los Angeles, California– have had saturation problems.

estados@eleconomista.mx