Container volumes surge

Don’t expect the container shortage crisis let up anytime soon. According to a report from the TSA website, container volumes on the Transpacific trade lane showed a first quarter increase of 13% when compared to the same time period in 2009. The TSA carriers reported a total 1st quarter container volume of 1.27 million FEUS from Asia to the US.

Via TSAcarriers.org:

“Neither shippers nor carriers were certain as to what direction the market would take coming out of the Lunar New Year holidays,” said Eng Aik Meng, APL Ltd. President, Liner. “Now it appears that the worst is behind us. Despite a pull-back in U.S. job creation and retail sales in May, the pipeline of Asian exports to the U.S. is filling rapidly and consumers are more optimistic over job security and household incomes going forward.” Mr. Eng emphasized that, while headlines have focused on peripheral issues such as European debt and U.S. tax and regulatory developments, many of the underlying fundamentals in the U.S. economy are positive: industrial production and durable goods orders are up, trade is expanding, inflation is low.

Revenue, however, continues to be a sticking point with the carriers. Many carriers faced record losses in in 2009 with the carriers losing a combined $15 billion.

While revenue gains made by carriers in recent months have made an important contribution to carrier balance sheets, carriers say the increases achieved in the current contract round still do not fully restore rates to the levels of late 2008, let alone provide for long-term viability and service expansion. In addition, to cover the costs of the expected robust peak season, individual TSA lines reaffirmed implementation of a previously announced Peak Season Surcharge.

TSA carriers are moving forward with aggressive plans to implement a Peak Season surcharge of $400 per FEU effective August 1. However, many carriers have already implemented a peak season surcharge effective in June.

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May Containerized Import Data Update – Zepol.com

On June 5th, we completed the data for May in our U.S. Customs trade data tool, TradeIQ. For the fourth month in a row, import shipments increased, rising 5.68% over April. May 2010 shipments also rose greatly over the previous year, up a whopping 19.55% over May 2009.

Below is a table showing port regions of the world where shipments originated:

Port Region	May 2010Shipments	Percent Change over Apr 2010	Percent Change over May 2009
Asia	559,534	7.63%	23.13%
Europe	109,796	1.57%	14.5%
Central America (includes Mexico)	58,644	3.18%	5.64%
South America	22,148	-0.88%	21.99%
North America	9,508	10.56%	-2.41%
Unknown	8,211	-8.85%	8.74%
Australia	6,868	-6.67%	-1.44%
Africa	3,618	-16.69%	28.57%
Totals	778,327	5.68%	19.55%

While Asian trade looks strong for May 2010 relative to April 2010 and May 2009, a glance at quarterly shipments since quarter three of 2007 shows that the regions’ shipments have yet to return to pre-recession levels. Though June data is needed before we can compare the performance of quarter two, we can see that with 1,470,958 shipments, quarter one is up 13% over the same quarter in 2009, but still down 7% from 2008.

Below is a chart of Asia’s quarterly shipments, starting with Quarter 3 of 2007:

The collection methods used by U.S. Customs for AMS data can lead to an overstatement of shipments for some ports, as imports and exports from Prince Rupert and Vancouver are often recorded as imports for the U.S. Moreover, the data includes shipments from empty containers, may overstate totals from transshipments, and may contain other data anomalies as well.

Zepol’s U.S. Customs trade data is derived from Bills of Lading entered into the Automated Manifest System. This information represents the number of House manifests entered by importers of waterborne containerized goods. This indicator is the earliest data available for the previous month’s trade activity.

Kevin Palmstein is the Director of Marketing and Product Development for Zepol Corporation. Zepol is the leading provider of United States trade information. Zepol’s products, TradeIQ™ and TradeView™, provide access to the latest U.S. Import Customs trade data and U.S. Import/Export Census trade statistics respectively. To learn more about Zepol, visit www.zepol.com and read their trade data blog, www.zepol.com/blog.