February 23rd, 2009

With an outstanding participation of Ms. Frida Garcia Valde-Casas Gonzalez, Director of Altamira’s Customs Office, the project of the Port of Altamira’s Quality Brand now officially includes the full cooperation of this authority.

The project is now in its second phase, creating the Procedure Manual and necessary documents to implement the Quality Brand in the Port of Altamira.

The philosophy is based in the logic conception and gradual design of the port-logistic processes in order to achieve improvements in coordination, efficiency, speed and security, that can also make the possibility of offering guaranteed services to the final customers feasible and practical.

As part of the activities developed in Valencia, we can emphasize the visit to the Customs Facilities, where all the members of Altamira’s Port Community were attended by Ms. Mercedes Cano, Director, who explained all the actions taking place in the entity, and the advantages that their own Quality Brand has to offer to make all administrative procedures simpler and better control of their processes, as well as a better coordination and integration with the Port users. Present in the meeting were Mr. Andres Suarez, President of the Customs Agents Association Tampico-Altamira and Ms. Vilna Figueroa as representative of the container maritime terminal in Altamira, both key players in the Quality Brand development.

Following an intense activity program, an interesting visit to the vessel consignation company was made; this company in Valencia represents the largest number of container traffic with Altamira. In the meeting was directed by Mr. Armando Reyna Alanis, president of the Mexican Association of Shipping Agents Tampico-Altamira and member of the national council in AMANAC, and allowed the Port Community to verify the operations of this company ruled by the Quality Brand, which has lead to important increase in vessel calls in the Port of Valencia.

The meetings of that day concluded in a reunion with Boira/Soriano, customs agent leader in its sector and one of Valencia’s pioneers from 1924. In this meeting they got to know a little bit about the port history and its evolution, until they became number one port in the Mediterranean, the one with the best projection and growth, coinciding with Altamira and consolidating the relationship between both ports.

To finish the agenda, the group visited the Valencia Container Terminal, meeting hosted by Mr. Luis Ruiz Vergara and Oscar Magdalena Dasi, responsible of Quality Brand follow-up in the Terminal. This important visit consisted of a detailed tour through the facilities and a demonstration of the most favorable functioning in operations, which contributed to the more than 3 million containers handled in 2008 in the Port of Valencia.

Source: Commercialization department