UPS Team Tackles Complex Cross-Border Logistics
UPS has operated in Mexico for 25 years. Photo: UPS
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UPS has operated in Mexico for 25 years. Photo: UPS
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Every day, some $1.4 billion is exchanged in commercial trade between the U.S. and Mexico, according to UPS. In fact, the U.S. is Mexico’s largest trading partner, and Mexico is the United States second-largest export market (after Canada) and its third-largest trading partner.
Growth in manufacturing and the middle class in Mexico, increases in e-commerce shipments, and the rise in intermodal cross-border shipments between the U.S. and Mexico drove UPS’s renewed focus on the trade lane.
In 2014, UPS established a center of excellence for U.S.-Mexico trade. A team of experts evaluated and improved offerings, focusing on shippers’ needs. Then early last year, UPS announced it had strengthened those cross-border services.
“UPS has seen nearly a 20% increase in customer requests for U.S.-Mexico cross-border movements,” says Carlos Cubias, vice president of the UPS center of excellence. “We reengineered and aligned our capabilities for more flexibility, reliability, visibility and simplicity. Shippers now have the same service options – express, expedited or standard – for all shipments regardless of size. In addition, UPS is the only carrier with delivery guarantees for LTL and package shipments when we are the customs broker.”
Automotive, manufacturing, aerospace and high-tech are the priority industries UPS serves out of Mexico. U.S.-to-Mexico trade includes the same industries, and growth of the Mexican middle class means in the future more volume will go from the U.S. to Mexico from the healthcare and retail industries.
Familiar with that automotive freight is Darryl Barber, automotive segment marketing manager for UPS. He points out that the automotive industry has been expanding beyond the typical Detroit and rust belt states, both to southern states such as Alabama and Kentucky, as well as across the southern border to Mexico.
“You’ll see the same parts kind of crisscrossing the border multiple …Read the rest of this story
