Officials in the Mexican state of Baja California recently passed a $5 charge for all containers moving through the Port of Ensenada beginning in 2024.
The container tax initiative was spearheaded by officials from the city of Ensenada, Mexico, who said local roadways see heavy use from container transporters moving goods from the port to other destinations across Mexico.
“They transport up to 70 tons of cargo a day,” Ensenada Mayor Armando Ayala Robles told El Imparcial. “Three years ago we invested [$5 million] in the stretch of road from San Miguel [Beach] to the Port of Ensenada, and right now we are spending an average of [$587,000] a year to maintain that stretch of road.”
The Port of Ensenada is located along Mexico’s Pacific Coast, about 90 miles south of San Diego. The port handles about 250,000 containers a year. From January through November, it handled 429,721 twenty-foot equivalent units, a 4.7% year-over-year increase compared to 2022.
The tax proposal was approved by the state legislature of Baja California on Wednesday.
Trucking industry officials and customs brokers across the country said the tax could be a blow to nearshoring opportunities in Mexico.
“The imposition of new taxes on productive sectors will have a highly harmful effect on attracting future investments and will scare away those already present,” Miguel Angel Martinez Millan, president of Mexico’s freight chamber of commerce (CANACAR), said in a news release. “It is incomprehensible that, in the midst of an expansion process due to the arrival of nearshoring, authorities such as those of Ensenada promote restrictive regulations that make this important port less attractive.”
The Mexican Association of Shipping Agents (AMANAC) said it already costs about $24 in administrative fees to move a single container through the country’s ports.
Norma Pocoroba, president of AMANAC, sent an open letter last week to local and state officials urging them to reject the initiative.
“In order to avoid irreversible effects on the maritime port and foreign trade sector, your attentive support is requested in order not to approve the initiative sent by the mayor of the municipality of Ensenada to the Congress of Baja California,” Pocoroba said. “We consider that the tax entails overregulation … the economy and development of the sector would be affected, especially in an important economic and commercial exchange zone such as the Port of Ensenada.”
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