The U.S. Maritime Administration (MarAd) last month announced that the United States and China had signed “the most far-reaching, five-year bilateral U.S.-China maritime agreement in the history of maritime trade between the two nations during a ceremony in Washington, D.C.”
The agency further described the pact as “a sweeping agreement that gives U.S. registered shipping companies the legal flexibility to perform an extensive range of new business activities in China, including logistic operations, and providing services for their own vessels and alliance partnerships…. The agreement offers U.S. companies similar privileges to those that Chinese companies already enjoy in the United States.”The agreement was signed at a ceremony in Washington, D.C. “as part of the continuing Bush administration effort to strengthen U.S.-China relations and expand trade between the two countries,” MarAd reported. U.S. Transportation Secretary Norman Y. Mineta and China’s Minister of Communications Zhang Chunxian signed the pact.
Mineta said, “This new agreement strengthens the U.S. shipping industry by opening new markets in China and enhancing efficiencies in overseas shipping by allowing direct market access.”
He added, “It puts our shipping companies where the business is, closer to their markets and their customers. Based on free market principles, it opens significant new business opportunities for U.S. companies and their partners who do business in China.”
According to MarAd, more cargo containers move between China and the United States than any other country in the world. Over 3.2 million containers transit via ship between the two countries every year.
Maritime Administrator Captain William G. Schubert stated, “This agreement is expected to generate more business for American shipping and will facilitate more cargo moving across the Pacific. Positive employment benefits will result for the U.S. shipping industry and related industries associated with port operations and services, like trucking and rail.”
The agreement represents a long-awaited culmination of discussions and negotiations that have taken place over the past five years between the United States and China.
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