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A cargo ship hauls oil near the
Interstate 95 bridge over the Piscataqua River in this 2002 photo. Container
ships soon could use the river. (File photo)
By ROBERT M. COOK
Staff Writer
.....
A strong container shipping service
in Portsmouth could generate a lot of positive economic growth throughout
the region, according to
Evangelos Simos, chief
economist of the research firm
Infometrica Inc.,
and an economics professor at the University of New Hampshire in Durham.
"It is a myth that imports do not generate jobs. Transport, warehousing,
distribution, business services and retailing are some of the obvious
beneficiaries in jobs generation,"
Simos
said.
If Arain’s
company can generate a strong export business,
Simos
said the spillover effect will be even greater.
"For ... each $100 million of exports of manufacturing goods, about 1,400
jobs are generated in the state,"
Simos
said.
Maine success
Ben Snow,
operations manager of the Port of Portland, agrees with
Simos.
More than 2,000 acres in size, Portland’s port is much larger than New
Hampshire’s and can accommodate much larger container ships. Snow said the
demand for feeder services from Halifax is growing and Maine imports about
2,400 to 3,000 containers a year from there.
The Port of Portland’s cargo container business has increased 80 percent
from 1991 to 1999, according to a report written by the Greater Portland
Council of Governments. More than 700,000 tons of cargo pass through the
Portland annually.
The City of Portland is developing a waterfront expansion plan to
accommodate more container shipping business.
Snow said a lot of Maine companies still prefer to use tractor-trailer
trucks to haul their products to Canada and other ports. He believes the
Port of Portland is currently moving less than 20 percent of the total
container traffic in Maine.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
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