According to the latest forecast of the National Retail Federation (NRF), from this summer to early autumn, the United States of America's demand for cargo imports will bring more than 2 million TEU/month of imported boxes to the major U.S. container ports. The Retailer Trade Association (RTA) said that retailers are making efforts to maintain inventory levels for the summer selling season due to strong growth in consumer demand.
"We haven't seen numbers this high in almost two years," said Jonathan Gold, vice president of supply chain and customs policy at NRF. "Regardless of what the major economic media reports, consumers are shopping and retailers are making sure they have enough inventory to meet demand."
In the first quarter of 2024, U.S. port throughput was reportedly up strongly year-over-year, with more than a dozen major U.S. container ports totalling more than 5.8 million TEUs, in addition to a 17 per cent increase in U.S. merchandise sales in the first quarter over 2023.
Late summer and early autumn is traditionally the peak shipping season, coupled with continued growth in consumer demand, NRF predicts that the United States in the second quarter of commodity sales will be based on the original increase of at least 1%.
Ben Hackett, founder of Hackett Associates, an international trade consulting firm, said, "Despite the current global geopolitical turmoil and slowing economic growth, we are still seeing a lot of goods flowing into ports." Hackett Associates provides NRF with its monthly Global Port Tracker report. "All three coasts are seeing a surge in containerised imports, with the Gulf being the strongest, followed by the Pacific and the East Coast. The question now is whether this surge will continue or level off."
NRF expects US port container imports to reach 11.9 million TEU in the first half of 2024, a 13 per cent increase over the same period last year; imports are expected to be 6.05 million TEU in the second quarter and increase to 6.16 million TEU in the third quarter.NRF highlights that US imports in 2023 will total 22.3 million TEU, a decline of 12.8 per cent from 2022.
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