“Objects in the rear view mirror may appear larger than they are.”By George Lauriat, AJOT Financial pundits like former Federal Reserve Chief Alan Greenspan, Robert Hall, head honcho of the NBER’s (National Bureau of Economic Research) Business Cycle Dating Committee, and current Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke along with a host of other economists have declared that the global recession is over. Of course being economists, they universally hedge their bets by reminding us that the recession could again overtake recovery. Such economic uncertainty looms large in the rearview mirror of New Englanders, even as recovery creeps forward. Economically, the region received multiple blows as construction, retail, financial services, and hospitality sectors all were hard hit. Contraction became a defense against the onslaught, and job loss was an inevitable consequence. The lack of a large manufacturing sector (in contrast to states like Michigan) enabled the region to slip some of the worse blows. For example, back in July 2009, as measured by the State Economic Activity Index, the Great Lakes region was off 9.7%, while the New England was dropped only 3.7% from the previous three months (April-June 2009). According to the Federal Reserve Bank, both New Hampshire (192.5) and Massachusetts (169) are above the US average of 156.6 for economic activity (see chart). Port of Boston and the New England Market Mike Leone, Massport’s Maritime Director (Leone is also the Chairman of the Board for the American Association of Port Authorities (AAPA), the first person in AAPA’s 99-year history to serve twice as chairman), is more concerned about looking forward. “I expect we will see an uptick this spring,” he said of box traffic. Leone’s assessment bears watching. Box traffic at the Port of Boston’s Conley Container Terminal, (run by Massport, a quasi-state agency) is a good barometer of New England’s economic health. When times are good, box totals are up, especially consumer products on the inbound leg. However, when times are bad, box numbers fall as a function of demand, capacity cuts and bypasses in liner schedules. The Port of Boston’s box facility represents the big fish in a relatively small pond when it comes to competition for containerized freight with other New England ports. However, the Port of Boston competes with three other major ports for New England’s important import and export business: to the northeast there is the Port of Halifax in Nova Scotia, nearly due north lies the Port of Montreal and to the Southeast the mega Port of New York/New Jersey. However, the port competition doesn’t end there. To a lesser extent Boston competes with other East Coast ports like Baltimore and Virginia for inbound niche freight and outbound opportunities (available slots in vessel rotations). Given the number of place settings, getting a fair share of the potential New England freight is an ongoing battle for the Port of Boston. Depending on who is doing the arithmetic, it has been argued that two out of every three boxes enter or exit via some other port, whether shifted via truck or rail. In 2009, the Port of Boston handled 187,445 teus compared to 208,626 teus in 2008. Overall it wasn’t a bad result as export teus were actually up 12% in 2009 over the previous year. Although total teus through the Port were off 13% in 2009 compared with 2008, loaded teus were off only 3% (159,583 versus 164,548), implying that most of the lost traffic was in empties. To put the volumes of the last two years into historical perspective, in 2007, before the full impact of the recession was felt, the Port did a very respectable 223,393 loaded teus. The main direct services calling at the Port are MSC’s (Mediterranean Shipping Company) European and Mediterranean rotation and the CKYH (composed of COSCO, K-Line, Yang Ming and Hyundai) Asian service. The Port also had a CMA-CGM service, but that service stopped. The Port also has one of the longest container barge services linking