Survey Will Seek Ways To Increase Commerce At Great Lakes Ports

The marine consulting firm of McQuade-Cormany A s s o c i a t e s, New York, will conduct a special trade and transportation survey on behalf of a group of labor, management, and state government officials striving to increase international commerce and shipping through Great Lakes ports and the St. Lawrence Seaway, it was announced recently. According to F.X. McQuade and William Cormany, their organization will explore the wide range of factors affecting both cargo flow and ocean vessel movement between the Midwest industrial heartland of the United States and North Europe and other overseas regions as one part of the trade promotion drive.

The study will include freight shipper needs, port capabilities, Seaway and pilotage tolls, competition from Canadian minibridge services, and U.S. Government policies that contribute to the decline in vessel services by American- flag ships at Great Lakes ports, among other issues, they said.

The report will be submitted to the broad-based group of labor o f f i c i a l s , s t e v e d o r e companies, state economic agencies, port authorities, customs brokers, agents, and other commerce-related interests involved in the program to stimulate shipping and trade servive in the Seaway-Lakes region.

It includes Thomas W. Gleason, p r e s i d e n t of the International Longshoremen's A s s o c i a t i o n, AFL-CIO; Patrick J. Sullivan, secretary-treasurer of the ILA Great Lakes District; Senator Don A. Moore, chairman of the Illinois Commission for Economic D e v e l o p m e n t ; C.N. Kritikos, chairman of Ceres Terminals, Inc., and leaders of all major ports in the area, and many other individuals.

The McQuade-Cormany action will complement developments by area officials to reverse the decline in shipping in the Great Lakes port area. The promotion group has already held talks with U.S. and foreign ship operators, Federal Government officials, and Commercial freight shippers in the effort to improve trade movement.

These efforts will now be intensified by a variety of means including the pending trade survey, it was indicated.

Mr. McQuade and Mr. Cormany said that major emphasis in their effort will be directed to showing that vast cargo shipping potential exists in the Great Lakes region involving both liner and bulk cargo trade. The study, they said, will push for American-flag ships and foreign vessels to carry such freight to overseas areas directly from inland ports rather than overland transshipment to coastal areas as frequently occurs.

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