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.

What comes to mind immediately when asked where U.S. imports come from? The likely answer is a resounding ‘China’! While it’s true that nearly 20% of all U.S. imports are sourced from China, Zepol’s data for 2012 shows some emerging countries that are capturing the attention of U.S. importers.

In 2012, imports from China rose by 6.6% and totaled over $425 billion worth of goods. While China is still the leader in this space by a landslide, other countries have shown impressive growth. Imports from Japan, Germany, and India all saw increases of over 10% in 2012. More demand for vehicles and pharmaceutical products were leading causes of the significant rises. Oil imports from Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Kuwait have also increased considerably in the last year. Below is a chart listing the top ten countries that the United States sources from.

Rank	Country	Value of Imports, 2011	Value of Imports, 2012	Percent Change
1	China	$399,335,065,066	$425,643,589,056	6.59%
2	Canada	$316,510,676,527	$324,246,264,535	2.44%
3	Mexico	$263,105,802,935	$277,652,738,042	5.53%
4	Japan	$128,811,280,219	$146,387,721,789	13.65%
5	Germany	$98,400,502,465	$108,524,461,823	10.29%
6	South Korea	$56,635,533,100	$58,879,764,420	3.96%
7	Saudi Arabia	$47,476,329,712	$55,666,953,824	17.25%
8	United Kingdom	$51,176,362,978	$54,934,751,749	7.34%
9	France	$39,983,421,736	$41,600,625,338	4.04%
10	India	$36,167,368,828	$40,518,290,068	12.03%

As of this January, Zepol's TradeIQ™ Import has surpassed ten years of collecting import Bill of Lading data from U.S. Customs. TradeIQ™ Import now contains nearly 115 million U.S. ocean-import Bills of Lading. Zepol first started offering U.S. import data in 2003, and has since expanded to offering U.S. Census Bureau statistics, import-compliance datasets, and U.S. export Bills of Lading. In addition, we are currently developing major enhancements to the export tool, which will quadruple the number of Bills of Lading available.

“With nearly 4,000 trade professionals turning to Zepol for a competitive edge, our goal is to ease the challenge of importing and exporting goods to and from North America,” says Zepol’s CEO Paul Rasmussen. “Zepol’s robust online tools have seen continual enhancements for the past ten years; we’re confident any trade professional will be surprised by the preciseness and speed of our tools.”

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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.