Zepol: U.S. Imports Down 7.4% in June, Big 3 Postpone New Transpacific Service; Soft Patch or Prolonged Global Slowdown?

I received some interesting shipping data points from a friend in the shipping industry. Data points are from reportedly from American Shipper and Zepol.

US Imports Fell 7.4% Year-Over-Year

• U.S. import shipment volume for June 2011 dropped 7.4% from June 2010
• TEUs, decreased 4.6% from the previous month
• Total number of U.S. bound shipments fell over 6% from June 2010.
• Year to date, U.S. import volume is up 4.8 percent.
• June decrease largely due to a nearly 6% decrease in shipments from Asia
• China shipments fell 5.8%
• Japan shipments increased 2.5%
• Shipments from Central America fell 4.9%
• Shipments from South America fell 7.6%

TEU stands for "Twenty-foot equivalent unit", a measure used for capacity in container transportation.

Big 3 Container Lines Postpone New Transpacific Service

The world's three biggest container lines have postponed plans to introduce a transpacific shuttle service this year until the second quarter of 2012, one of the lines said Wednesday.

Maersk Line, Mediterranean Shipping Co. and CMA CGM had planned to start in May a new transpacific loop but adverse demand conditions forced the lines to postpone the start of the service three times. Service has been pushed back until 2012.

Soft Patch or Prolonged Global Slowdown?

The soft patch theory is slowly dying on the vine, if not completely dead.

Numerous supporting data points in manufacturing, ISM, jobs, in the US, Europe, and China confirm this is more than a soft patch. Europe will be back in recession soon and the US will follow.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List