The new crown pneumonia epidemic has stimulated freight demand to a certain extent. In 2020, the import volume of containerized cargo in the United States will set a new historical record, and high import demand will continue until early 2021.
Jonathan Gold, vice president of supply chain and customs policy at the National Retail Federation (NRF), said: "Even in the context of the pandemic, the US retail sales will continue to grow strongly in 2020, thanks in part to the government. Stimulus policies. Retailers expect that the economic recovery will continue in 2021."
According to the latest monthly global port tracking report released by NFR and Hackett Associates, preliminary statistics show that in December 2020, the import volume of container cargo in major US ports was 2.02 million TEU.
NRF stated that if the final figures for December 2020 remain unchanged, the U.S. containerized cargo imports in 2020 will reach 21.9 million TEU, an increase of 1.5% over 2019, and break the 2018 annual record of 21.8 million TEU.
In addition, the agency also predicts that in January 2021, this number will reach 1.96 million TEU, an increase of 7.7% year-on-year, the busiest January in history.
Looking ahead, until May 2021, the import volume of containerized goods in the United States will continue to increase substantially.
Specifically: February is expected to reach 1.6 million TEU, a year-on-year increase of 6.1%; March is 1.64 million TEU, a year-on-year increase of 19%; April is 1.76 million TEU, a year-on-year increase of 9.6%, and May is 1.86 million TEU, a year-on-year increase of up to 21.7%.
However, what worries retailers is that there is still a risk of supply chain disruption in the United States.
On the one hand, the congestion in US ports has not been significantly eased. The data shows that as of January 10, 2021, there are at least 47 ships waiting to enter the port at the anchorages outside the Port of Los Angeles and Long Beach. Among them, 34 are container ships with a total capacity of more than 270,000 TEU. The largest ship is 16022TEU.
On the other hand, as the epidemic continues to spread in the United States, the number of confirmed cases in the United States has been increasing, and a large number of logistics industry practitioners are also unable to continue working due to the diagnosis of new crown pneumonia. Many logistics parks in the United States are facing serious manpower shortages.
The Inland Empire logistics zone, located about 100 kilometers east of the Port of Los Angeles and Long Beach, has become an important extension and logistics hub of the above two ports. However, due to the high proportion of employees in warehouses and distribution centers diagnosed with new coronary pneumonia, the supply chain of the logistics park is extremely fragile.
It is also worth noting that with the US President-elect Biden will be formally sworn in on January 20, 2021, the United States may implement a trillion-dollar economic stimulus plan.
Biden once said: "In order to prevent economic collapse, we should now invest a lot of money to develop the economy, which is very necessary."
US investment bank Evercore ISI analyzed that it is expected that there will be two rounds of stimulus policies in the future. First, in the first quarter of 2021, launch a package of US$1 trillion-1.5 trillion to stimulate consumption; second, in the second quarter of 2021, launch a long-term infrastructure package of approximately US$1 trillion.
These will lay the foundation for the US consumption boom in 2021.
It is foreseeable that the US economic stimulus policy will bring more cargo volume, which is expected to directly benefit the container shipping market
