MIA, Brazilian Post Office launch expedited shipping service

Today, Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos A. Gimenez, Miami International Airport Director Lester Sola and officials from Miami-Dade County and the Brazilian Post Office (Correios) gathered in Brasilia to announce the launch of Compra Fora (“Buy Outside”) – a first-of-its-kind, expedited shipping service that allows e-commerce packages of all sizes from anywhere in the world to be shipped to Miami International Airport (MIA), be pre-cleared by Correios, and arrive in Brazil as domestic cargo within days instead of what used to take weeks or months.

Correiros chose MIA as its first Compra Fora partner in large part because the airport ranks first in the U.S. for cargo flights to Brazil and commands 38 percent of the entire MIA-Brazil air trade market. Brazil is MIA’s largest international market for passengers and trade value, generating more than 1.5 million travelers and $12 billion in cargo shipments annually.

Through a joint venture between Miami-based logistics providers SinerlogUSA and Interport Logistics - the first two companies selected by Correios for the Compra Fora program – items purchased by registered Compra Fora customers in Brazil are stored at Interport’s facility within Miami-Dade County’s Foreign Trade Zone, before being inspected, pre-cleared and shipped from MIA with a Correios label. Those shipments can then arrive in Brazil as domestic cargo and be transported to their final destinations via Correio’s logistics network. Compra Fora allows Brazilian customers to have their own postal network addresses, schedule and group their shipments, pay any required taxes or fees, and track their order with the Sinerlog Safety Tracker (SST) system.

The 2006 signing of a Sister Airport agreement between the Miami-Dade Aviation Department and the Brazilian Airport Authorities, in partnership with Miami-Dade County’s International Trade Consortium (ITC), was one of the contributing factors to the creation of Compra Fora.

As the busiest international freight hub in the Western Hemisphere, and through innovative programs like Compra Fora, MIA is uniquely poised to benefit from the global e-commerce boom responsible for $2.29 trillion in worldwide sales in 2017 – a figure projected to double in the next four years. Market research firm Statista forecasts Latin America to be a strong e-commerce growth region during that span, with a projected doubling of annual sales from $29.8 billion in 2015 to $64.4 billion in 2019. Brazil is Latin America’s largest economy, and was responsible for an estimated 65 percent of the region’s e-commerce sales in 2018.