Imports at the major retail container ports in the US are expected to increase 4.6 per cent during the first half of 2017 over the same period last year. This has been stated in a monthly Global Port Tracker report released by the National Retail Federation (NRF) and Hackett Associates as the nation’s economy improves and retail sales will continue to grow.
“This is very much in line with what we are forecasting for retail sales and consumer spending this year,” said NRF Vice President for Supply Chain and Customs Policy Jonathan Gold adding, “Retailers try to balance inventories very carefully with demand. So, when retailers import more merchandise, that’s a pretty good indicator of what they are expecting to happen with sales.”
Ports covered by Global Port Tracker handled 1.58 million Twenty-Foot Equivalent Units (TEU) in December, the latest month for which after-the-fact numbers are available. That was down 3.8 per cent from November as the holiday season came to an end but up 10.2 percent from December 2015. That brought 2016 cargo volume to a total of 18.8 million TEU, up 3.2 per cent from 2015, which had grown 5.4 percent from 2014. One TEU is one 20-foot-long cargo container or its equivalent.
January was estimated at 1.59 million TEU, up 6.6 per cent from January 2016. February is forecast at 1.53 million TEU, down 0.6 per cent from last year; March at 1.43 million TEU, up 7.8 per cent from last year; April at 1.56 million TEU, up 8.2 per cent; May at 1.66 million TEU, up 2.3 per cent, and June at 1.65 million TEU, up 4.3 per cent.
Those numbers would bring the first half of 2017 to 9.4 million TEU, up 4.6 per cent from the first half of 2016. That would be almost three times the 1.6 per cent growth seen in the first half of 2016 over the same period in 2015.
Also Read – Retail sales to increase 3.7-4.2% in 2017: NRF
The cargo numbers come a day after NRF forecast that 2017 retail sales – excluding automobiles, gasoline and restaurants – will increase between 3.7 and 4.2 per cent over 2016, citing job and income growth and low debt that show “the fundamentals are in place”.
