Zepol welcomes this guest blog entry from Transport Intelligence, a market intelligence firm for the transport and logistics industry.

Better working conditions and a pay increase are behind a two-week strike at the port of Hong Kong. However, it appears Li Ka-shing, who controls half of the capacity at Hong Kong and almost as much at neighboring Shenzhen/Yantian is not budging on concessions to port workers. Meanwhile, cargo is reportedly piling up at the port. According to the Hong Kong Association of Freight Forwarding and Logistics, approximately 120,000 TEUs have accumulated at the port since the strike began.

How is the strike affecting the U.S. ports? Based on Zepol's most recent data, March shipments from the port of Hong Kong were down year-over-year by 18.6%. However, before alarms are sounded, one needs to take note the Chinese New Year holiday in February may also be attributing to this decline – manufacturers probably did not reopen businesses until late February at best which would account for lower shipments in March. In fact, U.S. import shipment totals for other Asian ports are low as well as noted on the chart below:

For the two largest U.S. ports, it appears that March shipments were mixed. A year-over-year 4% increase in import shipments was noted for Los Angeles; however, an almost 47% year-over-year decline in shipments from Hong Kong was noted for the port of Long Beach. Some of this sharp decline for Long Beach may indeed be attributed to the strike. April shipment data will probably be more telling for potential adverse effects U.S. ports may have suffered due to the Hong Kong strike.

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: