Retail Container Traffic to grow more slowly in 2007
09 Jan '07
3 min read
Traffic at the nation's major retail container ports should continue to grow in 2007 as retailers import more merchandise from abroad, but won't grow as fast as it did during 2006, according to the monthly Port Tracker report released by the National Retail Federation and Global Insight.
“Overall trade growth is expected to be positive but slower compared with the monthly rates we saw in the first half of 2006,” Global Insight Economist Paul Bingham said. “Nonetheless, each month is still expected to see a new record volume for that month.”
Container traffic is expected to grow at rates ranging from 4.6 to 7.3 percent once the winter slow season ends this spring (March through May 2007 measured against the same months in 2006). That compares with increases ranging from 7 percent to 17.9 percent during the same months last year.
“Port Tracker is giving us the ability to track and predict volume and growth at the ports with a level of precision we never had in the past,” NRF Vice President and International Trade Counsel Erik Autor said. “This data is vitally important for retailers trying to keep their supply chains running smoothly.”
All ports covered by Port Tracker – Los Angeles/Long Beach, Oakland, Tacoma and Seattle on the West Coast, and New York/New Jersey, Hampton Roads, Charleston and Savannah on the East Coast – are currently rated “low” for congestion, the same as last month.
Nationwide, the ports surveyed handled 1.36 million Twenty-foot Equivalent Units (TEUs) of container traffic in November, the most recent month for which actual numbers are available. The figure was down 6.6 percent from October but up 7.1 percent from November 2005.
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