It's been a long time since area manufacturers could export consumer goods using the Port of Cleveland, which today is almost exclusively used for ships bringing in raw materials.

But Adam Wasserman, president of the Cleveland-Cuyahoga County Port Authority, is trying to stir up enough interest among the region's companies to change that.

The port could begin ''container shipping'' this year, he said, giving area businesses a new option for moving their products to Europe, India, Southeast Asia and other eastern destinations. Containers are 20- to 40-foot long boxes, usually filled with finished products, that can easily be moved from a ship to a truck or stacked on a rail car.

The great majority of Ohio-built products exported overseas must now travel by rail or truck to an East or West Coast port.

But congestion has been a growing problem and it's not uncommon for shipments to be stuck dockside for days, Wasserman said.

Global trade through western U.S. ports is growing by double digits every year. As a result,

many Asian countries once headed for California are now shipping through the Suez Canal to the East Coast, and that is increasing traffic at ports Ohio companies typically use.

''Container traffic around the world has doubled in the last 10 years, but the infrastructure to handle that traffic hasn't changed much at all,'' Wasserman said.

According to the Internet site Wikipedia, about 90 percent of nonbulk cargo worldwide moves by containers stacked on ships.

The Port of Cleveland has not been an option because huge ocean-going vessels don't fit in the St. Lawrence Seaway, the body of water that connects Lake Erie to the Atlantic Ocean.

Ships are bigger

The seaway ''was built for the state-of-the-art ship, but over the last 50 years, the state-of-the-art ship has grown 13 times,'' Wasserman said. ''We can't participate in that ocean-going trade except for a new strategy.''

The port still serves the region's old primary industries, hosting smaller ships that carry steel, iron ore and other bulk material used by area manufacturers.

Last year, for the first time in several years, the port began shipping steel out because the weak U.S. dollar made the product more attractive to overseas customers.

But the port can do even more through a strategy called ''short sea shipping.''

The deep-water Canadian port of Halifax, Nova Scotia — or any of a number of new ports proposed at the mouth of the St. Lawrence Seaway — would serve as a hub between the ocean and the Great Lakes.

Containers of consumer goods or finished materials could be transferred to and from the hub using smaller ships.

''It's an alternative that doesn't exist today,'' said Christopher Burnham, president of the Summit County Port Authority, who has partnered with Cleveland to stimulate interest among area companies.

Cleveland and Toledo are uniquely positioned to be spokes on such a hub system because they are as far as a ship can get into the United States without beginning a time-consuming loop up and around the Michigan peninsula to reach other Great Lakes ports.

Toledo would be an attractive destination for companies to the west, while Cleveland hopes to become the port of choice for Ohio and western Pennsylvania, Wasserman said.

Benefits out of Cleveland

While trade between China and other Pacific Rim countries would still be more efficiently handled by West Coast ports, Wasserman sees many benefits to exporting eastbound products out of Cleveland.

It would be less expensive, eliminating the need for cross-country rail or truck transportation.

It's environmentally friendly, he said, saving on fuel.

And companies could guarantee customers an arrival date by bypassing potential truck, rail and coastal port delays.

''When you can't guarantee time of delivery, that's death,'' Wasserman said. But once you're on the water, ''there are no stop signs.''

Wasserman gave an example of a recent ship that demonstrated all of those benefits. A couple of weeks ago, a barge brought in a load of steel coils from Canada. It would have taken 200 trucks to deliver those coils by land to Ohio.

By staying on water, distribution costs dropped by about a third, he said.

''Keeping it on water is right for our region because it helps us be competitive,'' he said.

Wasserman said he'd like to see the Port of Cleveland shipping 100,000 containers a year.

Investment needed

The port would have to make an investment for such a system to begin. For one, it might help finance a new ship service between Europe and Halifax.

A test ship coming next month from Barcelona, Spain, will carry hundreds of containers down the St. Lawrence Seaway to ports yet to be determined.

If container shipping to Ohio proves successful, there could be even more benefits to the region.

Some have suggested that North Coast communities could be called on to build container ships.

And Ron DeBarr, president of the Northeast Ohio Trade and Economic Consortium (NEOTEC) based in Kent, said a more active port could attract new businesses here.

Studies have shown that when companies consider expanding or relocating, transportation/distribution is the No. 1 or No. 2 factor in choosing a location, he said.