Top 40 Container Lines – in U.S. imports

The JoC (Journal of Commerce) had an interesting report on the top 40 container lines in terms of U.S. imports, in TEUs, using 1st quarter 2007 numbers and comparing those to 1st quarter 2006, with the percent change. It’s all behind their subscription wall, so unless you have a subscription you can’t view it, but I’ll highlight some of the interesting ones.

Maersk Line, no surprise, is still number one by a substantial margin at 561,848 TEUs and a market share of 13%, but that’s an 11.1% DROP from the same quarter in 2006. No doubt their decision to discontinue inland service to a number of points is having an affect on their U.S. business.

MSC, at number three, jumped 14.3%, from 260,895 TEUs in 2006 to 298,314 in 2007 and has a market share of 6.9%.

China Shipping jumped 14.7% over the past year and has a market share of 5%. Also telling, Wan Hai Lines volume plummeted a whopping 31.7% from 62,462 TEUs to only 42,638 TEUs. Perhaps Yang Ming, also based in Taiwan, has been taking advantage of their losing market share – Yang Ming jumped 26.3% and is in a virtual tie at 11th place with K-Line.

The biggest percentage gains in volume?
- United Arab Shipping Co.: 95.8% (26th place)
- Tropical Shipping/Thompson Line: 62.2% (31th place)
- CMA CGM Group: 38.0% (8th place)
- Safmarine: 28.7% (24th place)
- Yang Ming: 26.3% (12th place)

Update: Los Angeles port strike averted – union agrees to final offer

Good news for the retail industry, importers, and the U.S. economy overall: the clerical union has agreed to the employers’ final offer:

“The employers are pleased that the union recognized the substantial investment that (employers) have made and agreed to their last wage proposal,” said Steve Berry, a negotiator for the shippers.

The deal with the Office Clerical Unit, Local 63, of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union came after an impasse in the talks was declared late Tuesday. The 15,000-member ILWU had indicated that longshoremen would honor picket lines if the 750 clerical workers went on strike.

This is good news for the ILWU overall as well; if the clerks had gone ahead with the strike during this busy peak season, the public perception towards the ILWU come next year’s important contract negotiation would most likely have been negative, hurting their chances for a successful negotiation.

Strong Thai Baht hurting exporters

While some countries are enjoying the increased purchasing power of U.S. made goods thanks to the weaker dollar, export oriented economies with simultaneously weak import growth are suffering as the cost of their goods rises. Thailand is being especially hard hit, as the Baht has strengthened significantly against the dollar. Excerpt:

Thai Silp South East Asia, a Thai garment exporter with 5,000 workers, had been struggling financially ever since it lost one of its biggest customers last year. But last week, as the Thai baht surged against the dollar, Thai Silp’s owners seemed just to give up, locking their doors overnight and start-ling workers who turned up the next day to find the factory seemingly abandoned.

After angry workers blockaded the road to the airport – and under intense pressure from the government – Thai Silp reopened its doors a day later, with vague promises of state help to obtain fresh bank credit. But the shutdown raised growing concerns about the -vulnerability of Thailand’s labour-intensive export industries to the recent rapid appreciation of the baht to levels not seen since the 1997 onset of the Asian financial crisis.

After strengthening about 12 per cent against the dollar in 2006, the baht has risen a further 6 per cent this year, surging 3 per cent in July to hit 10-year highs.

Weak U.S. dollar contributing to higher air cargo demand from Americas

It certainly makes sense, exports have been rising thanks to stronger foreign currencies:

David Shepherd, BA World Cargo’s VP of commercial activities for the Americas, told IFW: “We are certainly experiencing better demand [from the Americas] than we were seeing last year, especially on some commodities.

“We have seen much stronger demand for perishables traffic, partly due to better growing conditions, but unquestionably it is also partly because of the weakness of the dollar.” But he said the bigger change had been a reduction in traffic in the reverse direction.

“We have seen less demand to the states than in previous years. I think we have companies in the US that are starting to source domestically because of the weakness of the dollar.” For the first time in several years, BAWC’s exports from the Americas have been outstripping inbound volumes.

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