<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=452 border=0><TBODY><TR><TD vAlign=top width=452 colSpan=2>Published March 4, 2009
</TD></TR><TR><TD vAlign=top width=452 colSpan=2>Cargo traffic dries up at US ports
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(LOS ANGELES) The international trade business is foundering faster than ever seen before, with some US seaports watching cargo traffic fall by more than a third.
It's gotten so bad that Los Angeles and neighbouring Long Beach are slashing cargo rates to keep old customers and lure new business.
Oakland, California's port has laid off 12 per cent of its staff and cancelled free tours for the public. The number of ships idled around the world is approaching three times the number that were out of work during the last big ocean trade collapse, in 2002.
'It's phenomenal how much things fell away even since December,' said Paul Bingham, managing director of global trade and transportation for IHS Global Insight, the business research company that monitors North America's biggest ports for the National Retail Federation.
'Assuming the stimulus package works, you end the free fall in the second quarter, when you no longer see this accelerated decline,' Mr Bingham said. 'If the stimulus does not work, I don't think we know where the bottom is.'
There's a huge ripple effect at the docks and roughly 4,047 hectares of maritime facilities at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, the nation's busiest. The port complex is a trade gateway that employs more than 280,000 workers and annually handles US$357 billion in goods.
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</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>The effect is being felt in the loss of high-wage jobs and in spiralling real estate vacancies in inland warehouse and distribution districts, experts said.
As severe as the shift has been in Los Angeles and Long Beach, where February imports fell 18.1 per cent compared with the same month in 2008, it's worse in other places, according to the monthly cargo figures collected by IHS Global Insight.
Oakland is expected to be down 22 per cent in February, compared with a year earlier, as US consumers continue to rein in spending and as retailers cut factory orders to avoid building inventories that won't sell.
The February downturn is expected to be 29 per cent in Tacoma, Washington, and 39 per cent in Seattle when those ports finish tallying container movements.
Unlike the West Coast ports, which deal almost exclusively in trade to and from Asia, East Coast ports have a more diversified mix of trade with Asia, Europe and Latin and South America. Still, February trade is down at East and Gulf Coast ports ranging from 6.8 per cent at New York/New Jersey to 29.5 per cent at Charleston, South Carolina. -- LAT-WP
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</TD></TR><TR><TD vAlign=top width=452 colSpan=2>Cargo traffic dries up at US ports
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</TD><TD>Feedback</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>(LOS ANGELES) The international trade business is foundering faster than ever seen before, with some US seaports watching cargo traffic fall by more than a third.
It's gotten so bad that Los Angeles and neighbouring Long Beach are slashing cargo rates to keep old customers and lure new business.
Oakland, California's port has laid off 12 per cent of its staff and cancelled free tours for the public. The number of ships idled around the world is approaching three times the number that were out of work during the last big ocean trade collapse, in 2002.
'It's phenomenal how much things fell away even since December,' said Paul Bingham, managing director of global trade and transportation for IHS Global Insight, the business research company that monitors North America's biggest ports for the National Retail Federation.
'Assuming the stimulus package works, you end the free fall in the second quarter, when you no longer see this accelerated decline,' Mr Bingham said. 'If the stimulus does not work, I don't think we know where the bottom is.'
There's a huge ripple effect at the docks and roughly 4,047 hectares of maritime facilities at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, the nation's busiest. The port complex is a trade gateway that employs more than 280,000 workers and annually handles US$357 billion in goods.
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As severe as the shift has been in Los Angeles and Long Beach, where February imports fell 18.1 per cent compared with the same month in 2008, it's worse in other places, according to the monthly cargo figures collected by IHS Global Insight.
Oakland is expected to be down 22 per cent in February, compared with a year earlier, as US consumers continue to rein in spending and as retailers cut factory orders to avoid building inventories that won't sell.
The February downturn is expected to be 29 per cent in Tacoma, Washington, and 39 per cent in Seattle when those ports finish tallying container movements.
Unlike the West Coast ports, which deal almost exclusively in trade to and from Asia, East Coast ports have a more diversified mix of trade with Asia, Europe and Latin and South America. Still, February trade is down at East and Gulf Coast ports ranging from 6.8 per cent at New York/New Jersey to 29.5 per cent at Charleston, South Carolina. -- LAT-WP
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