Imports Expected to Hit New Monthly, Annual Records
Boosted by continuing sales growth, August is expected to be the busiest month on record for imports at the nation’s major retail container ports and 2017 is on track to set a new annual high, according to the monthly Global Port Tracker report released Friday by the trade group the National Retail Federation (NRF) and the consulting firm Hackett Associates.
“Retailers are selling more and that means they need to import more,” said Jonathan Gold, NRF vice president for supply chain and customs policy said. “With sales showing year-over-year increases almost every month for a long time now, retail supply chains are working hard to keep up.”
Ports covered by Global Port Tracker handled 1.69 million 20-foot equivalent units (TEUs) in June, the latest month for which after-the-fact numbers are available. That is down 2% from May but up 7.5% from June 2016. July was estimated at 1.72 million TEUs, up 5.6% from the same time last year. One TEU is one 20-foot-long cargo container or its equivalent.
August is forecast at 1.75 million TEUs, up 2.1% from last year. That would be the highest monthly volume recorded since NRF began tracking imports in 2000, topping the 1.73 million TEUs seen in March 2015. The 1.7 million-plus numbers seen in May and July and now expected for August and October would represent four of the six busiest months in the report’s history.
September is forecast at 1.67 million TEUs, up 4.7% from last year; October at 1.72 million TEUs, up 3%; November at 1.62 million TEUs, down 1.4%, and December at 1.59 million TEUs, up 1.5%.
Those numbers would bring 2017 to a total of 19.7 million TEUs, topping last year’s previous record of 18.8 million TEUs by 4.9%. That compares with 2016’s 3.1% increase over 2015. While July numbers are not yet final, the …Read the rest of this story
