U.S. imports for January increased fairly significantly from December by 6.9% and even had a slight rise from January of 2012 by 0.1%. Surprisingly, January imports have not been this high since 2007, which signals some steady rebounding growth for 2013.

The increase in imports mainly came from Asia, which rose in TEUs by 11.5%. Large export increases were seen more specifically from the countries of China and South Korea, which both rose almost 13%. You can read more about January's imports in our Press Release Here.

  Methodology:
Zepol’s data is derived from Bills of Lading entered into U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Automated Commercial Environment (ACE). This information represents the number of House manifests entered by importers of waterborne vessel goods. This is the earliest indicator for trade data available for the previous month’s import activity. The data excludes shipments from empty containers, excludes shipments labeled as Freight Remaining on Board (FROB), and may contain other data anomalies.       

According to Zepol's online database of U.S. ocean imports, TradeIQ™, imports in November have reached the lowest levels the United States has seen since February. November TEUs (twenty-foot-containers) decreased 12.8% from October and 15.2% from November of last year. There was a significant slump in imports from Asian countries by 18% from November of 2011, but European countries had only a slight dip in imports by 6.5%.

It's unique to see U.S. imports so low in November, but then again, with Hurricane Sandy torturing the east coast and an eight-day labor strike at the Ports of L.A. and Long Beach, the last month and a half has seen some unexpected and disrupting events...So the real question is will December continue the downward slope we've seen since July, or rise above the mediocre November?

Methodology:
Zepol’s data is derived from Bills of Lading entered into U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Automated Commercial Environment (ACE). This information represents the number of House manifests entered by importers of waterborne vessel goods. This is the earliest indicator for trade data available for the previous month’s import activity. The data excludes shipments from empty containers, excludes shipments labeled as Freight Remaining on Board (FROB), and may contain other data anomalies.       

According to Zepol's U.S. Customs trade data tool, TradeIQ™, total inbound shipments for April 2012 are up 9.8% from March and 8.7% from April of last year. This is the second consecutive month with high import increases and, by looking at previous years' trends, we could potentially see even greater import volume throughout the summer.

The table below shows trends in port regions of the world where shipments originated:


Below is the trend of the last 13 months showing total TEU volume and shipments as seen in Zepol's monthly vessel import press release:


Methodology:
Zepol's data is derived from Bills of Lading entered into the Automated Manifest System. This information represents the number of House manifests entered by importers of waterborne vessel goods. This is the earliest indicator for trade data available for the previous month’s import activity. The data excludes shipments from empty containers, excludes shipments labeled as freight remaining on board, and may contain other data anomalies.

According to Zepol's U.S. Customs trade data tool, TradeIQ™, total inbound shipments for March increased 12.06% from February and 6.3% from March of 2011. The increase from February is not suprising, due to the month's low import volume.

The table below shows trends in port regions of the world where shipments originated: