US Eastern Seaboard and Gulf of Mexico ports are taking a "glass half full" approach to the dismal outlook for world trade and shrugging off the pessimistic analyses of the container trade, which put the number of mothballed ships at anything between six percent and 10 percent.

So far this year, expansion projects costing at least US$1 billion have been unveiled at eight ports in Maine, Florida and South Carolina while on the other side of the country Alaska is joining the party with a $700 million plan to more than triple container capacity at Anchorage.
Florida is taking the most ambitious line. Its biggest short-term project is Jacksonville''s $300 million container terminal for Hanjin, due to open in 2011. This follows the opening in January of the first phase of the $250 million TraPac terminal. Matching this, but with an eye on much more distant horizons, is Manatee''s $750 million programme for container and related facilities over the next 50 years.
Charleston in South Carolina has issued a $60 million tender for civil engineering works for the first phase of its $600 million new container terminal, due to open in 2014, that will almost double capacity to three million TEUs a year.
Tampa and Everglades in Florida are getting ready for expansion, while the mothballed break-bulk Port of St Joe, closed since 1997, has signed deals to reopen.
In the tiny state of Maine a $200 million container port has been proposed on Sears Island that will handle 280,000 TEUs by 2016.
The eastern seaboard ports are staking their bets on the opening of the widened Panama Canal in 2014. Much of their optimism is based on the "build it and they will come" principle and on the industry''s growing disillusionment with West Coast ports and intermodal efficiency.
Carriers are getting nervous about Panama''s scheduled May increase in tolls. Maersk, Mediterranean Shipping Co and CMA CGM are re-routing their Suez vessels on the Asia-Europe route around the Cape of Good Hope. US ports expect the lines to also look at the Cape route to get to the US East Coast.
According to news reports, a 4,000 TEU vessel will pay an extra $20,000 per trip through the Panama Canal after the May increases come into effect, totalling $290,000 and including fees such as pilotage.
The new toll, the last in a three-year phased increase, will be $72 per TEU, 14 percent more than the current toll of $63. Panama authorities are not worried about re-routing and even recommend carriers to look at other options.
Reading between the lines of Panama''s confidence, bunker fuel prices are part of the lack of concern. Having fallen radically since last year''s record highs, prices are likely to go up again, when trade volumes pick up, and canal executives are sure that the cost of going the longer routes will be much higher than the canal short cut.
East Coast ports reckon they are winners, whatever happens. They sense widespread distrust of California and want to nudge shipping lines into ramping up the all-water routes.
Not all projects on the East Coast are surrounded by boundless optimism, however. Jacksonville has postponed an intermodal rail terminal for at least six months beyond the 2011 opening because of the recession.