WASHINGTON — Container volume rose significantly at the nation’s major ports in June, but the congestion that severely disrupted the docks last year has apparently not returned, according to a new retail industry survey.
“The good news is we are not seeing imminent problems,” said Erik Autor, vice president and international trade counsel at the National Retail Federation.
This assessment comes in light of the increase in cargo coming in this year compared with 2004, largely because of the elimination of textile and apparel quotas on Jan. 1.
The survey of major ports comes at a time when retailers are about to enter the peak of their shipping cycle for the holiday season and gives some assurance that the specter of last year’s congestion will not haunt them this year.
The NRF has hired the data analysis firm Global Insight to produce a monthly report titled “Port Tracker,” in response to the port congestion in 2004, particularly on the West Coast, that threatened the retail industry’s pipeline of imported merchandise.
Autor said the only ports that didn’t get the “green light” for operating at normal efficiency in the debut of Port Tracker this month were Seattle and Tacoma, Wash., and that was due to a trucker strike in Vancouver that forced the diversion of ships south to those two ports. That strike ended last week.
The report found congestion levels “low” at 75 percent of the nation’s major ports; 25 percent were at “medium” and none were at “high.”
Nationwide, ports covered in the survey handled 1.2 million 20-foot equivalent units, also known as TEUs, of container traffic during June — the most recent month available — an 11.2 percent increase over the same month last year.
According to the report, container traffic is expected to increase 7.6 percent to a peak of 1.3 million TEUs in October over a year ago, before settling at 1.2 million TEUs in December.
Significant increases in inbound cargo containers are expected in the next six months at Oakland, Seattle and Tacoma, while slow or flat growth is expected in the twin ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. The report also forecasts that the ports of New York and New Jersey; Hampton Roads, Va.; Charleston, S.C., and Savannah, Ga., will have sharper increases in container volume than West Coast ports because of increased use of “all water” Asian container services through the Panama and Suez Canals.
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The NRF will charge members and nonmembers for subscription to the report, which offers a snapshot of major container ports and looks at historical data, discerns trends and forecasts potential problems.