The Port of Long Beach is soliciting community input on plans to expand a staging area for double-stack trains.  The goal is to increase on-dock rail usage in the harbor.  Railroads have been increasing the length of their intermodal trains in order to operate more efficiently.  Trains can reach 10,000 feet in length, which is too long for some marine terminals to handle at their own on-dock yards.  Long Beach has a staging yard in the vicinity of 9th Street and Pier B Avenue, and the port will solicit public input on a plan to expand that facility, said spokesman Art Wong.

 

Union rejection of a contract extension for Atlantic and Gulf dockworkers probably means talks on a new contract won't resume until next year, and when they do, management's position on technology will be unchanged, the employers chief negotiator said.  Technology proved the key obstacle to efforts by the ILA and USMX to negotiate a two-year-extension to the current six-year-contract, which expires September 30, 2010.  The ILA's 200-member wage scale committee rejected a management offer in a vote described as unanimous.  No new talks have been scheduled.   

 

For the first time, China overtook Germany as the world's biggest exporter during the first half of 2009, the WTO (World Trade Organization) reported.  From January through June 2009, China's total export volume amounted to $521.7 billion, slightly exceeding Germany's exports, which totaled $521.6 billion.  Germany has long been the biggest exporter of goods and services but has been closely followed by China in recent years.  A WTO spokesperson said China and Germany remain very close in the competition, and it is too soon to say if China will overtake Germany as the world's largest goods exporter for all of 2009.  The final results will depend on several unknown factors, including foreign exchange rates and the pace of economic recovery in the various markets that buy exports from China and Germany in the coming months.  Speaking of economic recovery, more good news for China as the UN's Conference on Trade and Development is forecasting growth of 7.8 percent for China while the global economy is likely to drop more than 2.5 percent.  According to the UN report, China's expansive domestic demand policies have already helped China resist recessionary pressures, especially its $585 billion stimulus package, announced last November.  The money, much of it still unspent, is being used to build new highways, railways, housing, schools, hospitals and environmental protection projects.  During the first half of 2009, when the Chinese economy registered a growth of 7.1 percent, more than 80 percent of that growth was fueled by government investment.