News
In January, U.S. container imports increased 7.9% from December 2023 to 2.27 million TEUs, according to this month’s Global Shipping Report released by Descartes Systems Group. From January 2023, they were higher by 9.9%, and from pre-pandemic January 2029, by 9.6%.
Imports to the top 10 ports were significantly up by 149,906 TEUs, or 8.4% from the previous month. Compared to smaller ports, their share increased to 85.4%, up 0.9%. Volumes increased 21.1%, or 77,085 TEUs at Los Angeles, 15.1%, or 48,054 TEUs at Long Beach and 12.2%, or 5,831 TEUs at Tacoma. In contrast, throughput was down 3.6%, or 6,042 TEUS at Houston and 4.1%, or 4,331 TEUs at Charleston.
Imports from the top 10 countries of origin increased 9.6%, or 146,240 TEUs, with China having the greatest increase of 117,084 TEUs and Germany suffering the largest decrease of 2,851 TEUs. China represented 39.8% of the total U.S. container imports, an increase of 2.4% from the previous month, but those from the nation were still down 1.7% from the high of 41.5% in February 2022. They were the highest percentage of U.S. imports in two years.
