A rush to US ports
The interruption of liner services all over the world, caused by delayed deliveries and a downward spiral in production due to the pandemic, have had an extended impact. Many goods are now arriving in the USA – a trend that is further exacerbated by growing online trade.
Containers are piling up in US gateways, including the Southern Californian port of Long Beach. Although March doesn’t usually go down as a busy month, as it follows Christian and Chinese holidays, March 2021 saw record throughput volumes achieved in the gateway.
The port authority of Long Beach reported imports of 408,172 teu (+74% compared to March 2020). Exports declined by 3.9% in the same period. The total volume of containers moved in March was 62.3% higher than a year earlier, coming to 840,387 teu. Never before has the gateway recorded such a massive increase for a single month.
Consumers return to consumption
People in this region of California, just like in many countries worldwide, have found that staying at home in the Covid-19 lockdown has put a little extra money in their pockets. The trend was fuelled by money for travel being saved, for example, as consumers still had to – or wanted to – wait for the pandemic to subside a little more before going on holiday, as Mario Cordero, executive director of the Port of Long Beach, elaborated.
Now consumers are increasingly tempted to spend some of the money they’ve saved in the shops. The result? Goods such as home gym equipment or office furniture for home office work are experiencing sales highs. Retailers then simultaneously seek to fill the space in their shops vacated by the purchases – often with goods from overseas. On top of this effect there’s also the well-known growth in e-commerce trade, with very large quantities of these volumes imported from abroad.
Containers in short supply
For the ports, however, it’s difficult to cope with the onslaught of containerships and the on-forwarding of the boxes that have arrived. In March around 20 to 30 containerships were anchored outside the port, a few miles out to sea, waiting to be allocated a berth and to unload their cargo. Word from Long Beach has it that “the absence from work of many dockworkers suffering from Covid-19 is also still an issue for our operations.”
The problem partially originates in 2020, when Chinese box manufacturers stopped production because of the pandemic. Many retailers in the USA (and in Europe) didn’t send containers back into the trade flow as usual, but kept them, to store goods, for example. Now exporters are experiencing difficulties finding the boxes in the country they need to ship their goods.
Similar volumes in Los Angeles
Long Beach’s neighbouring port of Los Angeles has also just released it results. In March 2021 it moved 957,599 teu, +113% over March 2020.
