Even amid economic volatility, improving import cargo volume at the largest US ports will hopefully help the industrial real estate market recover and create opportunities for new distribution centers around the US. Global Port Tracker covers the ports of Long Angeles, Long Beach, Oakland, Seattle and Tacoma on the West Coast; New York and New Jersey, Virginia, Charleston and Savannah on the East Coast, and Houston on the Gulf Coast. Their most recent report concluded the following:
- Import cargo volume at the busiest U.S. container ports is beginning to ramp up after a flat summer.
- The 10 ports the report tracks handled 1.32 million 20-foot-equivalent units in July, up 6 percent from June but down 4 percent from July 2010. August was expected to be flat with last year at an estimated 1.42 million TEUs.
- Year-over-year growth is beginning to resume in September, which the report predicts will rise 11.8 percent to 1.5 million TEUs. October is forecast at 1.48 million TEUs, up 9.5 percent; November, 1.33 million TEUs, up 8 percent; and December at 1.2 million TEUs, up 4.5 percent. January 2012 is forecast at 1.19 million TEUs, down 1 percent from January 2011.
- The total for 2011 is forecast at 15.4 million TEUs, up 4.3 percent from 2010. Last year’s 14.7 million TEUs was a 16 percent increase over the unusually low numbers in the recession year of 2009.
Overall, the growth trends seem to be going the right direction. However, the unstable global economy could easily alter these forecasts.
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