Port Tracker report is bullish on import growth over the balance of 2024

There was a fair sense of optimism regarding United States-bound retail container imports in the new edition of the Port Tracker report, which was issued today by the National Retail Federation (NRF) and maritime consultancy Hackett Associates.

The ports surveyed in the report include: Los Angeles/Long Beach; Oakland; Tacoma; Seattle; Houston; New York/New Jersey; Hampton Roads; Charleston, and Savannah; Miami; Jacksonville; and Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based Port Everglades.

Authors of the report explained that cargo import numbers do not correlate directly with retail sales or employment because they count only the number of cargo containers brought into the country, not the value of the merchandise inside them, adding that the amount of merchandise imported provides a rough barometer of retailers’ expectations.

“We haven’t seen numbers this high for this many months in almost two years,” NRF Vice President for Supply Chain and Customs Policy Jonathan Gold said in the report. “Regardless of what headlines about the economy might say, consumers are shopping and retailers are making sure they have merchandise on hand to meet demand. The supply chain has adjusted to recent disruptions and retailers will work to keep the flow of goods moving smoothly as the back-to-school and holiday seasons approach.”

For March, the most recent month for which data is available, Port Tracker reported that import volume, for the ports covered in the report, came in at 1.93 million Twenty-Foot Equivalent Units (TEU), down 1.4% compared to February and up 18.7% annually, a period when Asian export activity was slow on the heels of Lunar New Year shutdowns, it noted.   

Port Tracker issued projections for April and the subsequent months, including:

• April, at 1.96 million TEU, for a 10% annual increase’
• May, at 2.06 million TEU, for a 6.8% annual increase, which would match October 2023 for the highest monthly total going back to August 2022’s 2.26 million TEU;
• June at 2.03 million TEU, for an 10.7% annual increase;
• July at 2.02 million TEU, for a 5.5% annual increase;
• August at 2.1 million TEU, for an 7.1% annual increase; and
• September, at 2.04 million TEU, for a 0.5% annual increase

The report observed that monthly volumes have only topped the 2 million TEU mark two times, going back to a 19-month stretch of 2 million TEU per month through October 2022. And it added that the first half of 2024 is expected to come in at 11.9 million TEU, which would mark a 13% annual gain. For calendar year 2023, imports fell 12.8% compared to 2022, at 22.3 million TEU.

Hackett Associates Founder Ben Hackett wrote in the report that even with a shift in spending from goods to services, U.S. consumers continue to spend, which is helping to boost imports.

“We are still seeing a strong volume of goods flowing into ports despite global geopolitical turmoil, high interest rates, and a slowdown in economic growth,” wrote Hackett. “There has been a surge of container imports on all three coasts, with the strongest being the Gulf, followed by the Pacific and the East Coast. The issue now is whether this surge will continue or level off.”

What’s more, Hackett pointed out that the buildup of inventories appears to have peaked in the first quarter, suggesting that recent supply chain issues have subsided. And with the International Longshoremen’s Association’s contract at East Coast and Gulf Coast ports set to expire at the end of September, he said shippers may be moving up some shipments.

“Exports from Asia to North America have recovered, and we feel that this years’ import growth will continue at a higher pace than was anticipated earlier,” noted Hackett. “Our latest projection for all ports covered by the Global Port Tracker suggests that imports for the year will be up around 9% over 2023.”