Author: Alfredo Gonzalez
In the middle of the year 2001, when I traveled the route from the Miami Airport to Weston, I was trying to guess with my two youngest children the number of vaquitas that grazed on both sides of the I-75 route. At that time I was excitedly heading towards an encouraging future, while leaving behind, with deep nostalgia, my beloved Venezuela.
Today, after more than 20 years of living in this hospitable country, I feel gratified by luck. I have managed to raise a family in an environment of civic values and, as if that were not enough, I have embraced a career -business broker- that has allowed me to generate the necessary material resources to live with dignity.
During these years of intense learning about the art of living and surviving, the vaquitas of I-75 have been displaced by a myriad of residential complexes and modern shopping centers. Miami, in its dynamic expansion, has incorporated all those urban centers that surrounded it into its metropolitan area.
And just as the immigrant is assimilating into the culture of the country that welcomes him, Miami has been transforming itself into a great metropolis due to its ability to absorb the various migratory currents that shape it. Miami is today a cosmopolitan city with an enviable geographical position that has earned it the qualification of the "gateway to the Americas".
With great pleasure, I observe that Miami is projecting itself before the world not only as a famous tourist destination, but also as a dynamic center for the development of the logistics, banking and finance, information technology, manufacturing, biotechnology and information technology sectors. Health.
Miami International Airport is handling record figures in terms of international cargo. On its premises, more than 400 brokers and customs agents handle 83% of all imports and 81% of all exports to and from Latin America and the Caribbean. After New York's JFK airport, Miami Airport is the second in the country in terms of international passenger traffic. The efficiency of the airport represents a valuable contribution to the multimodal scheme that will be linked to the port, the railway system and the land transport network.
The status of the port of "Free Trade Zone", meanwhile, implies a tax benefit that facilitates the handling of goods in transit. Since the zone is considered to be outside the US customs territory, companies operating under this regime may defer, reduce or eliminate taxes on imports.
Likewise, the port's train service connects with the Florida East Coast Railway's national network and allows dispatched goods to reach more than 70% of the North American population in a maximum time of 4 days.
Miami's business climate is so fruitful that a 9,3 percent growth in employment is expected, from 1,138,771 workers to 1,244,771 for this year 2021, with the greatest emphasis corresponding to the sectors of health, technological information, services financial and real estate. In fact, Miami is home to more than 1,400 multinational companies such as American Airlines, FedEx, Oracle, Yahoo, Kraft Foods, Sony, Walmart, Visa International, Exxon-Mobil, Oracle, Cisco, and Microsoft.
Miami, in the banking circles, is known as the Financial Capital of Latin America. Miami-Dade is home to the highest concentration of banks on the East Coast, after New York. Financial institutions from all latitudes -Switzerland, Brazil, the United Kingdom, Canada, France, Germany, Israel, Japan, China, Spain and Colombia, among others- carry out international and local operations from their headquarters in Miami-Dade County.
And to close this count of successful achievements, I want to mention the real estate boom that favors Miami and its areas of influence. When the coronavirus began to spread rapidly in the US in early 2020, the real estate industry foresaw catastrophic moments in the short and medium term.
However, since the beginning of the summer of 2020, the Miami real estate market showed unexpected signs of a rapid recovery and now, in 2021, it continues to rise due to the increasing demand caused by the growing domestic and international migratory flows and by the low rates of mortgage interest.
In short, Miami has become in recent years a world reference for its leadership in finance, logistics, technology, tourism, education, health, entertainment, arts and sports. Having witnessed all this evolution fills me with great satisfaction and confirms my conviction that by emigrating to the “Sunshine State” I made the right decision for the benefit of my entire family.
God bless Miami!