Few are the days in the year when a large community from the Mexican maritime and port sector, along with leaders in foreign trade, gather at a public event.
Yesterday, it happened in Mexico City at the formal ceremony of the swearing-in of the new National Directing Council 2024-2026 of the Mexican Association of Maritime Agents (Amanac), where Fernando Con y Ledesma presented himself for the third time as its president and guide.
Maritime agents are responsible for representing foreign shipping lines in the process between arrival and departure in Mexican ports. They can handle both cargo and passenger ships. Nobody knows the ins and outs of the merchant maritime world like they do.
Amanac celebrated its 36th anniversary last year. It brings together more than 120 shipping agencies representing 95% of ship calls, facilitating the movement of approximately 95% of cargo in Mexican ports. Some of them have already been in service for over 100 years.
The business of shipping agencies is thriving. Last year, the country’s ports welcomed the arrival of 21,791 ships, divided by type of cargo into breakbulk (7,223), containerized (4,909), agricultural bulk (602), mineral bulk (3,607), petroleum and derivatives (3,984), and other fluids (1,466), according to data from the General Coordination of Ports and Merchant Marine (CGPMM).
The 21,791 ships that arrived in 2023 surpassed those registered in 2022 by 5.4%. In 2019, there was a peak of 22,875 ships.
In terms of cruises, the country served 2,743 ships (+3%) last year, with nine million 78,320 passengers (+36%), according to official statistics.
During the event in Mexico City, Fernando Con y Ledesma stated that his presidency will be based on three pillars: institutionalization, functionality, and linkage.
Con y Ledesma replaced Norma Becerra, who led Amanac for the past four years but who will also stand out in the history of the organization as the first woman to preside over it.
During Becerra Pocoroba’s tenure, more visibility was given to the activity of maritime agents, thanks to the formal institution of August 6 as the Day of the Maritime Agent in Mexico in the Calendar of Commemorations, Remembrances, and Celebrations linked to civil society organizations, by the Ministry of Governance since October 2022.
Meanwhile, Alejandro Malagón Barragán, president of the Confederation of Industrial Chambers (Concamin), reaffirmed this business organization’s support for Amanac, while emphasizing that they will seek to strengthen industrial policy in a country that demands greater legal certainty and rule of law.
The National Directing Council of Amanac was also comprised of Ricardo Antonio Eversbusch Amtmann and Roberto Martín Meillón Covarrubias as vice presidents, Bernardo Vela Becerra as treasurer, René Flores Navarro as secretary, and Lidia Linares López, Andrés Echeverría Bennett, Bernardo Mercado Deverdun, and Felipe Bracamontes Venegas as board members.
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