Trade intelligence company Zepol Corp. reports that U.S. import shipment volume for August, measured in TEUs, increased 8.21% from July but decreased 2.79% from August of 2010. The total number of shipments also increased almost 10% from July while also showing a decrease of 0.65% from August of 2010. Year to date, total TEUs are up 2.35% this year over last year.

Key Statistics from this Month’s Update:

Incoming shipments from Asia reached a new high for the year with shipments amounting to 604,374; surpassed only once in August 2010. Both Asia and Europe displayed large increases in shipments for August, rising 10.69% and 10.87%, respectively. Within Asia, China set the bar at 320,969 incoming shipments in August which was a near 11% increase from July 2011. Central America and South America also exhibited positive increases for the month of August.

All U.S. ports posted increases in incoming TEUs for August when compared to July. The Pacific ports reached 901,200 TEUs, the most since September 2010. The Mid-Atlantic ports recorded an impressive 12% increase in TEUs, mainly attributable to the combined 20.10% increase in the ports of New York, New York and Newark, New Jersey.

Zepol’s data is derived from Bills of Lading entered into the Automated Manifest System. This information represents the number of House manifests entered by importers of waterborne containerized goods. This is the earliest indicator for trade data available for the previous month’s import activity. The data excludes shipments from empty containers, excludes shipments labeled as freight remaining on board, and may contain other data anomalies.