News
Import cargo volume at the U.S.'s major retail container ports should be at near-peak levels this month even as retailers work to cope with the Hanjin Shipping bankruptcy, according to the monthly Global Port Tracker report released by the National Retail Federation and Hackett Associates.
Ports covered by Global Port Tracker handled 1.63 million TEUs in July, the latest month for which after-the-fact numbers are available. That was up 3.2 percent from June and up 0.7 percent from July 2015. One TEU is one 20-foot-long cargo container or its equivalent.
August was estimated at 1.67 million TEUs, down 0.4 percent from last year, and is expected to have been the busiest month of the annual shipping-cycle buildup to the holiday shopping season. September is forecast at 1.62 million TEUs, down 0.2 percent from last year; October at 1.63 million TEUs, up 5.3 percent from last year; November at 1.53 million TEUs, up 3.8 percent, and December at 1.49 million TEUs, up 3.6 percent.
Those numbers should bring 2016 to a total of 18.6 million TEUs, up 1.8 percent from last year. Total volume for 2015 was 18.2 million TEUs, up 5.4 percent from 2014. The first half of 2016 totaled 9 million TEUs, up 1.6 percent from the same period in 2015.
