DELAWARE RIVER PORT TRIES TO BOOST SOUTH AMERICAN FRUIT TRADE

DELAWARE RIVER PORT TRIES TO BOOST SOUTH AMERICAN FRUIT TRADE    Dennis Rochford, president of the Maritime Exchange for the Delaware River and Bay, urged the U.S. International Trade Commission to consider adding frozen concentrated lemon juice from Argentina to the Generalized System of Preferences.
   GSP is a U.S. government-backed program that allows certain imports from developing countries to enter the United States with substantially reduced import duties. The ITC accepted the Argentinean lemon juice concentrate petition as one of 50 of more than 500 submissions.
   The Delaware River and Bay manages large volumes of fresh and processed fruit products from South America. Annually, the port operations handle about 250 ships with fruit cargo.
   “Increasing the level of these import cargoes throughout our ports, particularly during the U.S. spring and summer months when the fresh fruit from South America is all but non-existent, ensures the viability of these investments and strengthens the overall competitiveness of our regional port with respect to handling these types of cargoes,” Rochford said in his testimony.
   “The bottom line is that our regional port is competitively positioned to handle an increase in Argentinean lemon juice cargoes,” he added.