Two adjacent ships piled high with Asia-bound containers traverse both lanes of Miraflores Locks at the Panama Canal. Photo by Trevor Williams.

The Georgia Ports Authority signed an agreement with the Suez Canal June 2 to promote the shipping route from the Asian/Indian subcontinent through the canal to the North American East Coast and the Port of Savannah. 

The relationship between Savannah, the fastest-growing port in the U.S., and the canal has been key to the rapid development of both entities, and the historic agreement provides for their continued partnership in the exchange of information and expertise. 

They also pledged to bolster each other’s presence in their respective markets and where they have common customers.

The Suez Canal runs across Egypt's isthmus between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean.

Despite slow economic growth in the U.S., Georgia’s ports have posted a 20.6 percent year-over-year increase in container traffic for the first 10 months of fiscal year 2008, which ends in July. 

In a statement, Gov. Sonny Perdue commended the state’s ports, calling them “dynamic economic engines that continue to thrive even during tough economic times.”

He cited the addition of new berths and four post panamax cranes as important improvements to the Savannah port’s processing capability.  

Savannah’s Garden City Terminal alone handled 2.2 million twenty-foot equivalent units, or TEUs, in the 10-month period, 19 percent growth over the previous year.

The Suez Canal played an integral role in the record numbers Savannah is on track to post. 

In 2007, 67 percent of the ports authority’s total increase in trade came via the Suez Canal, and in the past 18 months, the agency has doubled its Suez service routes, Executive Director Doug Marchand said.

“Our Suez trade will only continue to accelerate in the years ahead and this partnership will lay the ground work for even stronger growth,” he said in a press release.

Steve Green, the ports authority’s chairman, said that staying ahead of the curve is key if Savannah is to continue setting the pace for container traffic growth in the U.S.

In preparation for the ever-larger vessels traversing the world’s all-water shipping routes, the ports authority must plow ahead with the project to will deepen the Savannah Harbor to 48 feet.

“The successful completion of this deepening is the GPA’s No. 1 infrastructure priority,” Mr. Green said. 

The ports authority has strategic partnerships with the Shanghai International Port Group, Sydney Ports Corp. the Port of Shimuzu in Japan, and the Panama Canal Authority, with which the Georgia authority renewed a two-year-old pact at the time of the Suez signing. 

On June 3, GPA and the Shanghai group jointly launched in Savannah an "E-tag" radio frequency identification, or RFID, container tracking program. 

Delegates from all around the world are converging in Savannah June 3-5 for the fourth annual East Coast Maritime Conference.