Prince Rupert, Prince George join to take more transpac market share

TWO Canadian west coast towns are working hand-in-hand to be become a major entrepot for China cargo entering North America, promoting the advantage of faster delivery time to the US, reports Xinhua.

Canada`s British Columbia provincial towns of Prince George (pop 80,000) and Prince Rupert (pop 12,800) have emerged as ports of entry for US-bound China cargo partly because of a US$2.8-billion Asia Pacific Gateway and Corridor initiative by Canadian federal, provincial and the two municipal governments in 2006.


The "Prince" cities under the aegis of "Team Northern BC" recently called on China to promote themselves and held a series of seminars to explain trade and investment opportunities during BC Week in the Canada Pavilion at Shanghai Expo.


The delegation also joined the China International Fair for Investment and Trade in Xiamen with Tim McEwan, president and CEO of Initiatives Prince George, saying his municipally-owned entity had been "aggressively pursuing opportunities in China," and has visited five times since 2008 with a further trip planned for next month and another, in November.


"We are faster than other corridors," he said. "The Port of Prince Rupert is 58 hours closer to Asia than other [west coast] ports."


That includes Vancouver, Canada`s largest port for US-bound cargo. But 90 per cent of Vancouver throughput is Canada-bound. The real competition lies to the south on the US west coast,


"There is a two-to-four time [day] differential using our corridor. What you have is a port that is uncongested, you have a rail corridor that is uncongested and you don`t have the bottlenecking you have in other west coast ports," said Mr McEwan.


"It really has come into its own as a port that is being recognised for its true just-in-time delivery." The Fairview Box Terminal, which features a seven-track rail yard on the dock, opened in 2007 and was built specifically to take advantage of an existing CN line that connects to an extensive North American rail network.


Containers, double stacked onto trains in Prince George, can reach Chicago in the US heartland in less than 100 hours. About 800 kilometres (500 miles) to the east of Prince George is Prince Rupert on the coast.


Prince George, the most substantial town in the British Columbian interior, is a major source of wood products, mining, pulp and paper at the junction of the east-west Highway 16 and the north-south Highway 97.


In 2008, CN opened a US$20 million, 7,803-square-metre inland box stuffing/destuffing terminal capable of moving significant amounts of containers. West of the airport, a $30 million 6.6-kilometre road has opened up a 1,200-hectare area that will be the site of a logistics park development.