Sharp increase in US container import volumes
In its recent analysis of logistics data for the shipping industry, Descartes Systems Group reports that import volumes show some consistency with pre-pandemic levels for the first quarter of the year but continue to point to a challenging global supply chain performance in 2023.
According to its April Global Shipping Report, US container import volumes in March 2023 amounted to 1,853,705 teu, 6.9% more than in February 2023. Teu volumes were down 27.5% from March 2022, but up 4.2% from March 2019.
This evolution was largely driven by the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, "which was very counter intuitive", the Canadian IT logistics company says, but kept the monthly trendline aligned with pre-pandemic 2019 volumes.
The West Coast labour situation has still not been sorted out, and port transit delays stabilised in all ports. Furthermore, imports from China continued their downward trend and are almost 10% lower than their high in February 2022. (lh)