The Southern Florida city has become a strategic hub for air and sea freight. According to a report from Investment Monitor, more than 70% of Florida’s exports go to Latin America.
In a recent article, the British newspaper The Economist dubbed Miami the Americas’ “commercial capital,” describing it as the most important hub connecting the US with Latin America and the Caribbean and explaining that 1,200 multinational corporations have set up the headquarters of their Latin American operations in Miami-Dade County.
The country moves a significant amount of money, with a GDP of $172 billion – roughly as big as the combined GDP of Ecuador and Uruguay. Furthermore, five Fortune 500 companies are based in Miami.
There is a reason behind those figures: Miami is a gateway to the rest of the continent. Indeed, according to a report from Investment Monitor, over 70% of Florida’s exports go to Latin American countries.
Also, according to the report, 30% of all businesses in Florida are owned by a person of Hispanic descent and nearly four million people speak Spanish. The state’s commercial diplomacy is solid too: it has 40 binational commerce chambers and 94 sister-city relationships focused on Latin America.
Florida’s Exports
According to The Observatory of Economic Complexity, in 2022, the state of Florida became the sixth largest exporter out of the 53 exporters in the USA, with a volume of $67.5 billion.
The top destinations for Florida’s exports were Brazil ($5,56B), Canada ($5.26B), Mexico ($4.03B), the UK ($3.86B), and Colombia ($2.72B). Argentina ($104B) and Paraguay ($72.9B) are among the export destinations with the largest growth between July 2022 and the same month in 2023, up 63.3% and 66.4%, respectively.
In 2022, the top exports of Florida included aircraft parts ($8.25B), medicaments ($2.5B), smartphones ($1.96B), electronic integrated circuits: processors and controllers ($1.48B), and automatic data processing machines ($1.36B)
A Logistics Launchpad
Aerodoc’s EVP of OPS & Customer Service Estefanía Sisatzky explains that Miami acts as a strategic hub for everything related to outbound sea freight. “The city concentrates significant port activity, both for outbound merchandise and as a transition/connection hub. This is due mostly to its strategic position between the Northern and the Southern Hemisphere,” she added.
“As for air freight, Miami boasts a significant number of service providers, flights and connections.” Forty-three percent of flights between the USA and Latin America include Miami as a point of departure or destination. Therefore, according to Sisatzky, “Miami’s airport and its port are international connection hubs for both passengers and cargo.”
In this sense, Aerodoc’s Head of Business Development Carolina Muller explains that many companies from other regions such as Europe or Asia that want to export into Latin America find in Miami a strategic launchpad from a logistics standpoint. “Miami has a readily accessible port in terms of destinations and deadlines, with great reach to the city’s Airport and Port Everglades”, Muller said.
Aerodoc’s Miami Warehouse
Under the new business dynamics brought by globalization, companies increasingly rely on strategic logistics hubs inside international supply chains. This has led to a boom in the warehousing market.
According to estimations from consultancy firm Straits Research, this market has surpassed $700 billion in value per year, while the global warehousing services market is projected to reach $1.264 billion in 2030 growing at a CAGR of 7.70% between 2022 and 2030.
Thanks to its Miami warehouse, Aerodoc has become a key partner for countless companies that wish to expand into Latin America and the Caribbean. In the past four years, Aerodoc’s warehouse occupancy rate went from 60-65% to more than 100%.
Aerodoc Warehouse Managed Services (AWMS)
Through Aerodoc Warehouse Managed Services (AWMS), Aerodoc manages warehousing and stock for its customers from its Miami warehouse and does wholesale shipping to the entire continent. The company expanded its warehouse in 2022.
“We are always trying to manage as many products as possible from our own warehouse, but we also work with our global agent network to provide services at every destination where we operate (more than 170 countries), as well with local partners in Florida and other American cities,” explains Aerodoc’s COO Dan Zonnenschein.
“This way of working allows Aerodoc to meet both local needs and seasonal demand peaks”
The biggest customers of Aerodoc’s services come from the technology and telecommunications industry, but the company also works with verticals related to B2B e-commerce. Its largest markets are Latin America, the Caribbean, and Asia.
AMWS complements Aerodoc’s IOR service, which allows companies to enter countries where they do not have a legal entity while avoiding fixed costs and the need to build infrastructure. This approach gives many Aerodoc customers a way to access various markets in Latin America and the Caribbean, leveraging the cost optimization they get by having a warehouse available to them in a global strategic hub.
If you want to learn more about Aerodoc’s warehousing services, please contact our team.
