On November 7th, Zepol completed the data for October in our U.S. Customs trade data tool, TradeIQ. October’s results show imports increased a mere 1.88% from September. However, import levels are continuing to shrink from 2008 levels. Total shipments are down 10.63% from October 2008.

Below is a table showing the port regions of the world where shipments originated:

As shown last month, international ports are coping differently with this economic climate and this is true for U.S. ports as well. As the most active port in the country, Los Angeles has kept with the nationwide trend as its imports dropped slightly more than the national average, importing 10.83% less than it did in October 2008. However, it has bucked national growth trends, growing 8.86% since September. On the other hand, its neighbor Long Beach's shipments have dropped off 12.53% compared to October 2008 and 10.52% since last month; this is the only port of the top 10 that did not experience growth last month.

Below are the top 10 ports in the U.S. by shipment count:

Zepol's U.S. Customs trade data is taken from Bills of Lading entered into the Automated Manifest System. The information represents the number of House manifests entered by importers of waterborne containerized goods. This indicator is the earliest data available for the previous month’s trade activity.

One of the most important things that importers, exporters, and transportation service providers use trade data for is to see the trade trends for their industries and products. They want to know where imports are coming from and where exports are going. They examine how much product is being imported and exported; compare the data to the past to see how much of an increase or decrease the entire market is experiencing.

To this end, Zepol has developed a new feature on our website that provides the most recent trends of U.S. trade statistics for each Harmonized Tariff Code. This information is searchable by HTS Code and also can be drilled down on from our Current Data by HTS Code page.

Click here to see the latest data for HTS Code 0904.12 (Pepper of the Genus Piper (Black and White), Crushed or Ground) to see a sample of one of these pages.

These pages show a trend graph and the top 5 countries that the products were imported from and exported to. It also allows you to drill up or down on the HTS code hierarchy.

Please let Zepol know if you have any questions about this data or would like to see additional information about U.S. Census and U.S. Customs trade data. The data on these pages is a high level overview, but our products give you the detail underneath the codes from multiple views and even down to the company level.