The rate of growth in U.S. export activity is outpacing imports, which will require more investment in freight infrastructure and technology for the United States to remain competitive globally, a logistics industry expert said during a regional shipping conference today in Des Moines.

Last year, the volume of U.S. exports increased by 7 percent, compared with just a 0.7 percent gain in import volume, said Anne Landstrom, a principal adviser with Moffatt & Nichol, a cargo and infrastructure engineering firm based in the port city of Long Beach, Calif. Landstrom gave the opening address at the inaugural Heartland Shippers Conference this morning at Embassy Suites Hotel Des Moines Downtown.

“We expect that sometime in the near future, (U.S.) exports will exceed imports for the first time in a long time,” Landstrom told about 200 attendees. “We’ve been so focused on development of infrastructure to support imports, we really haven’t focused on infrastructure for exports.”

Increasing competition from developing countries such as Brazil, which is expected to surpass the United States in soybean exports by 2016, demonstrates the need for the United States to invest in more port infrastructure to handle larger containerized shipments of grain. Logistics challenges, such as more efficiently moving shipping containers to where they are needed, must also be addressed, she said.

Trucking, which now accounts for approximately 70 percent of the freight volume and weight hauled in the United States, is a vital part of the logistics system, said Paul Trombino, director of the Iowa Department of Transportation (IDOT), in introductory remarks at the conference. “It wasn’t long ago that it wasn’t close to that,” he said.

Trombino said his department is in the process of forming a freight council that will include about 20 industry representatives. “We want to look at breaking down some of the bureaucracy so that we can enhance the efficiency of the system,” he said.