California Apparel News

It was a tale of two ports when the tally for cargo-container volumes came in last month.

The Port of Long Beach saw a 16 percent jump in the number of cargo containers passing through the docks in August compared with last year.

But it was a different story across the water at the Port of Los Angeles, where cargo-container volume was up less than 1 percent.

When the numbers were parsed, imports at the Port of Los Angeles were down 1.41 percent to 360,000 20-foot containers while exports declined 3.84 percent to 164,819 containers. What did increase, by 8 percent, were empty cargo containers loaded onto ships.

Overall, August volumes at the Port of Los Angeles edged up 0.4 percent to 706,669 containers.

However, the Port of Long Beach was particularly active in August.

“I think for the first time you are starting to see that slow economic improvement,” said Art Wong, a spokesman for the Port of Long Beach. “It is starting to turn into something significant.”

Wong thought Long Beach’s cargo-container volume was up because more merchandise is being loaded onto larger megaships, which need deeper berths to dock. The Port of Long Beach has several deep berths to accommodate megaships.

In August, cargo-container imports were up 19.2 percent to 327,817 containers compared with last year. Exports jumped 20.2 percent to 154,118 containers, and empty cargo containers increased 5.8 percent to 148,357 containers. Overall, August volume at the Port of Long Beach was up 16 percent to 630,292 containers.