News
A total of 1,246,669 TEUs of containers were transported from Asia to the U.S. in May, growing 6.1% from a year earlier, according to a report recently released by the Japan Maritime Center (JMC). Making a year-on-year improvement for the third consecutive month, throughput on the trade exceeded the 1.2-million-TEU mark for the second time (following May 2006) to a new record for the month of May. Eastbound container movement was robust in the first five months (January-May) as well, increasing 5.3% to 5,753,808 TEUs.
Meanwhile, the JMC, which compiled the report from statistic data provided by America’s Port Import/Export Reporting Service (PIERS), said that westbound containers amounted to 571,424 TEUs in April, which rose 1.4%. They accomplished a year-on-year increase for two months in a row, thanks to favorable movement to Japan, China, Taiwan, Southeast Asia, South Asia and other countries and regions. From January to April, on the other hand, containers from the U.S. to Asia fell 1.7% to 2,255,250 TEUs. It is expected that container traffic on the route will continue to hike 4.3% to 5.8% in the future.
Looking at eastbound containers by origin, the JMC report indicated that those from Hong Kong, Indonesia, the Philippines and Bangladesh all decreased from a year earlier in May, waning 2.7% to 31,170 TEUs, 1.9% to 28,326 TEUs, 10.8% to 8,927 TEUs and 18.4% to 7,090 TEUs, respectively. In contrast, containers from China, South Korea, Japan and Taiwan were powerful, hiking 7% to 828,700 TEUs, 6.6% to 69,163 TEUs, 4.2% to 50,668 TEUs and 3.5% to 48,973 TEUs, respectively. As for shipments from Southeast Asia, those from Vietnam surged 10.1% to 57,000 TEUs, achieving a double-digit increase for three consecutive months. The total volume went up 3.8% to 155,397 TEUs, growing year on year for three straight months.
