Container growth "saved" by US imports

The container demand data from CTS for November 2018 are now available. Overall global container growth reached 1.4% on a year-on-year basis. Not only is this quite low, is is also a reduction from the 3.7% growth in October. But this is not what is the most important about the data.

The most important part is the large spread in growth rates seen. The North American imports grew a very strong 13.8%, lending added data to the well-known fact that the Pacific peak season was the strongest seen in many years. However, such high growth on this market also indicate that other trades have fared much worse.

The European imports grew 1.7%, and are thus not overall the culprit for the decline in growth, but certainly didn't add any fuel either.

North American exports were down a whopping 8% - and South American imports were equally down by 8%. European exports only fared slightly better at a cargo volume reduction of "only" 0.6%.

All in all this shows a very lopsided and volatile market. As capacity continues to grow it is on one hand "good" that growth is higher on the head haul than on the back haul, as this helps absorb the new capacity.

On the other hand this also means increased trade imbalances and the need for carriers to increase head haul rates further in order to compensate for the elevated levels of empty repositioning of containers.

Finally, if it turns out to be true that the high levels of US imports are partially due to pre-tariff cargo movements, then we could well see a drop in North American import growth rates in 2019 and presently the other trades are not there to “pick up the slack”