Miami: the city in constant growth.
In the middle of 2001, when I was traveling from the Miami Airport to Weston, I was playing with my two youngest children about the number of vaquitas that grazed on both sides of I-75. At that time I was excitedly heading towards an encouraging future while leaving behind, with deep nostalgia, my beloved Venezuela.
Today, after thirteen 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 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 attracted to its metropolitan area all those urban centers that surrounded it.
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".
I have seen with pleasure at this time how Miami is projected before the world not only as a famous tourist destination but as a dynamic center of 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. In its premises, more than 300 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 2nd 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 with the Port, the railway system and the land transport network.
The Port of Miami is the largest Cruise Port in the country and with the commissioning of the expansion of its facilities, it will be the largest container port and will allow the operation of Post Panamax ships, once it is completed in mid-2015. the expansion of the Panama Canal.
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 train service of the Port is being reactivated to connect with the national network of Florida East Coast Railway and allow 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 fertile that employment is expected to grow 9,3 percent, from 1,138,771 workers to 1,244,771 by 2021, with the greatest emphasis in the health, information technology, financial services and real estate. In fact, Miami is home to more than 1400 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 media, It 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 over the world -Brazil, the United Kingdom, Canada, France, Germany, Israel, Japan, China, Spain, Colombia and Venezuela, among others- carry out international and local operations in Miami-Dade County.
And to close this account of successful achievements I want to mention the real estate boom that favors Miami and its areas of influence. More than 50 skyscrapers taller than 122 feet are currently being built in the area and only 3% of condominiums are vacant to the point that sales of condominiums and single-family homes are above pre-crisis levels throughout Miami-Dade County.
The bicoca of 11751 multi-family permits was granted in 2013 in Miami and its metropolitan areas of influence. The structural profile of Miami is changing in such a way that the prestigious publication Almanac of Architecture and Design has cataloged it as the most “impressive” after New York and Chicago.
Commercial property has also recovered, today showing demand exceeding supply.
In summary, In recent years, Miami has become a world reference for its leadership in finance, logistics, technology, tourism, education, health, entertainment, arts and sports. Having been an eyewitness to all this evolution fills me with great satisfaction and confirms the feeling that by emigrating I made the right decision for the benefit of my entire family nucleus.
God bless Miami!