Growing Companiesfor international trade / Tourism

Port Manatee is one of Florida's largest and fastest growing deepwater seaports. Located in the eastern Gulf of Mexico at the entrance to Tampa Bay, Port Manatee is the closest U.S. deepwater seaport to the Panama Canal – providing shippers with speedy access to Pacific Rim markets. The port and its partners move approximately 9 million tons of containerized, breakbulk, bulk and project cargo each year including fresh produce, forestry products, petroleum products, citrus juice products, fertilizer, steel, aluminum, automobiles, cement, aggregate and more.

The Port of Tampa is working to expand container traffic after a long and successful history as one of the world's premier ports for the shipment of fertilizer and petroleum products around the globe. Tampa now handles much of the building materials needed to support construction in central Florida, including cement, aggregate, lumber and steel, and is rapidly growing its worldwide container business led by success of Zim Integrated Shipping Services, an Asia-Gulf Express service.