Declines expected to continue amid pandemic
Estimates show that containerised retail imports at major US box ports dropped to their lowest level in five years in March.
Imports are projected to remain significantly below normal levels through early summer as the coronavirus pandemic continues, according to the Global Port Tracker report released by the National Retail Federation (NRF) and Hackett Associates.
“Even as factories in China have begun to get back to work, we are seeing far fewer imports coming into the United States than previously expected,” NRF Vice President for Supply Chain and Customs Policy Jonathan Gold said.
“Many stores are closed, and consumer demand has been impacted with millions of Americans out of work. However, there are still many essential items that are badly needed and because of store closures cargo may sit longer than usual and cause other supply chain impacts.”
Hackett Associates Founder Ben Hackett said: “The COVID-19 pandemic is unraveling the economy nationally and globally as most of the world moves toward a lockdown that entails the closure of significant portions of both the service and manufacturing industries.
“The largest drop is forecast for the first half of this year but with uncertainty about the length of the lockdown and extent of the pandemic, the second half may not be in better shape.”
US ports covered by Global Port Tracker handled 1.51m Twenty-Foot Equivalent Units (TEU) in February, the latest month for which after-the-fact numbers are available. That was down 17% from January and down 6.8% year-over-year. A TEU is one 20-foot-long cargo container or its equivalent.
February numbers are normally lower than January because of annual factory shutdowns in China for Lunar New Year celebrations. But the shutdowns lasted longer than usual and continued into March because of the coronavirus outbreak.
While actual numbers for March are not yet available, estimates show that imports plunged to 1.27m TEU, down 21.3% year-over-year and the lowest level seen since 1.21m TEU in February 2015 during a labour dispute that caused slowdowns at West Coast ports that winter.
April is forecast at 1.44m TEU, down 17.6% year-over-year; May at 1.48m TEU, down 20.1%; June at 1.41m TEU, down 21.4%; July at 1.61m TEU, down 18.2%, and August at 1.72m TEU, down 12.5%.
Before the coronavirus began to have an effect on imports, February through May had been forecast at a total of 6.9m TEU but is now expected to total 5.7m TEU, a drop of 17.3%. As recently as last month, monthly numbers had been expected to hit the 2m TEU mark beginning in May. The last time monthly totals fell below 1.5m TEU was in February 2017.
The first half of 2020 is forecast to total 8.93m TEU, down 15.1% from the same period last year. Before the extent of the pandemic was known, the first half of the year was forecast at 10.47m TEU.
Imports during 2019 totaled 21.6m TEU, a 0.8% decrease from 2018 amid the trade war with China but still the second-highest year on record.
Global Port Tracker, which is produced for NRF by the consulting firm Hackett Associates, provides historical data and forecasts for the U.S. ports of Los Angeles/Long Beach, Oakland, Seattle and Tacoma on the West Coast; New York/New Jersey, Port of Virginia, Charleston, Savannah, Port Everglades, Miami and Jacksonville on the East Coast, and Houston on the Gulf Coast.
The report is free to NRF retail members, and subscription information is available at NRF.com/PortTracker or by calling (202) 783-7971. Subscription information for non-members can be found at www.globalporttracker.com.
