Atlanta lands new logistics convention

A group representing shippers, truckers, rail workers and others who move big cargo is launching a new convention in Atlanta in 2012 because of the state’s growing importance to the industry.

The convention will bring an estimated $23 million economic boost to the city and is another sign of a rebound in convention business since the economy slumped.

The Material Handling Industry of America announced Wednesday it is creating MODEX, an every two-year expo. The meeting, which leaders expect will draw 20,000 attendees, will be at the Georgia World Congress Center. The meeting is also scheduled in Atlanta in 2014.

Prompting the move, leaders with the group said, are expectations that cargo shipments will jump dramatically along the east coast after an expansion of the Panama Canal in 2014. State and local officials said Savannah will be a major beneficiary and, as evidence, point to last year’s agreement between the Georgia Port Authority and Maersk Line, one of the world’s biggest shipping companies, to make the city its inbound port of call.

“They are not doing this in other states,” Page Siplon, director of the Georgia Center of Innovation for Logistics, said of the Maersk deal. The center is part of the state Department of Economic Development.

Siplon said about 1 million Georgians work at businesses associated with the logistics industry.

Atlanta benefited from its three interstates and airport in going after the new convention, said William Pate, president of the Atlanta Convention and Visitors Bureau, which worked with the state and Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce to lure the meeting.