LA import rise wanes as retail buying subsides

Monthly container traffic through California's Port of Los Angeles climbed slightly in October, compared to a year earlier, but the figures indicate the peak pre-holiday shipping season is on the wane.

The number of containers shipped in and out of the Los Angeles port, the busiest in the US in terms of container traffic, was up 5.4 percent last month from a year earlier, according to the latest port statistics, reported Dow Jones Newswires.

October figures for the nearby Port of Long Beach haven't been released yet.

The two West Coast ports account for about 40 percent of US inbound container traffic, loaded mostly with consumer products and other imports from Asia.

Imported containers through the LA port climbed about 3.2 percent in October to 349,545. But the figure was off 6.3 percent sequentially from September and 12.4 percent from August, when overall monthly container traffic through the port reached its highest level in four years.

Port officials said the waning container imports indicate peak shipping season, meaning the traditional bump as retailers stock up in advance of the holidays, is subsiding.

Still, they also said the sequential monthly trends "are in line with the typical pattern of post-peak declines."

The National Retail Federation previously forecast August as the peak month for imported container traffic this year. The trade group, which aggregates data from many US ports for a monthly Global Port Tracker report in conjunction with Hackett Associates, has said many retailers appear to have stocked up early this year to avoid potential cargo backlogs and delays.

Meanwhile, the number of loaded outbound containers through the LA port, meaning exports, climbed 0.26 percent in October, compared to the year-earlier period, to 151,048 containers, in what port officials called an encouraging sign.

Empty containers through the port climbed 15 percent, to 181,790, in October, as shippers continued to return large numbers of empties to Asia to address capacity shortages.

Total container traffic through the Port of Los Angeles has climbed nearly 17 percent year-to-date.
(Source:www.cargonewsasia.com)