By Jenny Wagler
After a record-breaking 2010, Port Metro Vancouver (PMV) is bracing for a drop in trade with Japan as the country grapples with the aftermath of last month’s devastating earthquake, tsunami and nuclear crisis.
After China, Japan is the port’s second-largest trading partner. Roughly 17 million tonnes of cargo was shipped through the port to Japan in 2010.
The port also handles approximately $13 billion in Japanese-made imports annually, according to Chris Badger, Port Metro Vancouver’s COO.
Key imports include vehicles, vehicle parts, machinery and electronics. Badger said annual exports through PMV to Japan total approximately $9 billion; top exports are coal, copper, forest products and agricultural products.
While PMV is expecting trade with Japan to drop, Badger said the port doesn’t expect to be able to quantify that drop until late April. But he said a top concern already is imported Japanese vehicles.
“All Asian imports into Canada come through the Fraser River and, clearly, with the shutdown of the manufacturing plants in Japan, that will start to have an impact.”
Badger noted that PMV is also expecting to see a drop in Japanese-made vehicle parts for North American vehicles.
But on the export front, he said, shipments of coal – the top export to Japan – don’t appear to be slowing down. Last year, Japan was PMV’s top coal destination, with nearly seven million tonnes of metallurgical coal shipped.
Badger said PMV is anticipating some initial slowdown in forest products exports to Japan. But he added that in the longer term, that trend is expected to reverse as reconstruction ramps up in Japan.
Last year, Japan was PMV’s second-biggest lumber export market after China and its third-biggest wood pulp market after China and South Korea.
Badger said PMV is also anticipating a drop in exports of specialty grains such as hops and barley malt.
“We haven’t got clear indications on how badly the brewing industry has been impacted in Japan, but we do expect there will be some variation there as well.”
Badger added that while PMV has little control over lower imports coming from Japan, the port can bolster the export side by readying itself for the expected uptick in resource demand as Japan’s reconstruction gets underway.
“Our assumption will be that once Japan gets into recovery mode, the demand will be higher for resources and therefore our ability to get those resources to market quickly will be something we’ll be preparing ourselves for.”
Hideki Ito, Japan’s consul general in Vancouver, said the impact of the disaster in Japan on trade to B.C. is difficult to predict.
“The influencing factors to watch are the condition of the whole economy of Japan and how the efforts for rehabilitation and reconstruction in the earthquake zone progress.”
While down the coast at Los Angeles’ Port of Long Beach longshoremen have voiced concerns about radiation on Japanese ships in the wake of the crisis at Japan’s Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant, Badger said local longshoremen have yet to voice similar concerns.
Badger said Health Canada screens ships before they enter Canadian waters and cargo arriving at the port is screened through radiation portals.
But International Longshore and Warehouse Union Canada president Tom Dufresne said concern is brewing among local longshoremen.
“I think people are starting to get concerned because the ships that have come in the last couple of weeks would have left [Japan] before the earthquake and tsunami and the problems with the reactors,” he said. “But the ships that are coming in now will be the ones that would have been around there during that time.”
Dufresne said he’ll be working with the Canadian Coast Guard and other agencies to ensure that radiation-monitoring protocols address his membership’s concerns.