Descartes Systems Group, the global leader in uniting logistics-intensive businesses in commerce, released its May Global Shipping Report for logistics and supply chain professionals. U.S. container import volumes in April 2023 increased significantly from March 2023, largely driven by a surge in imports from China; April volumes also kept pace with pre-pandemic 2019 volumes. Despite overall volume increases, delays were reduced significantly at all ports.
Imports from China reversed their downward trend and are up 26.7% over March 2023. The West Coast labor negotiations appear to be progressing, but the contract has still not been finalized. The May report of the logistics metrics Descartes is tracking shows continued consistency with pre-pandemic import volume seasonality and signs that a number of the challenges to global supply chain performance in 2023 are abating.
April 2023 U.S. container import volumes increased 9.0% from March 2023 to 2,020,197 TEUs. Versus April 2022, TEU volume was down 17.8%, but up 5.3% from pre-pandemic April 2019. The strong growth in container import volume in April continued to track to 2019 volumes for the first four months of 2023 with a difference of 1.5% for the same period in each year.
“Container import volumes from China, which had been in decline since August 2022, rebounded dramatically in April 2023, representing 82% of the increase in volume from the top 10 countries importing into the U.S.,” said Chris Jones, EVP Industry Descartes. “Despite the volume increase in April 2023, port transit delays were much lower compared to March 2023 and, overall, port transit times are at their lowest since Descartes began tracking them in 2021.”