Shipping traffic up for the year despite slow Lunar New Year, Seaport Alliance says
Lunar New Year in February can put a damper on container traffic volumes at the start of the year.
Not this time, according to numbers from the Northwest Seaport Alliance.
The Tacoma-Seattle container terminal partnership announced last week that container volumes through Feburary were up by 8 percent compared with the same time last year, to 566,186 TEUs, or 20-foot-equivalent container units.
Despite fewer sailings, some because of the Lunar New Year, container traffic to and from international destinations was up to 467,344 TEUs for the year, or an increase of 9.1 percent, according to a news release. Factories in China traditionally close for two weeks during the holiday.
February traffic was down for the month compared with the previous year, the data show, but only by a couple of thousand containers, to 265,081 TEUs.
Breakbulk cargo was down 4 percent to 25,043 metric tons.
Auto shipments were down 6 percent to 23,654 units.
Kate Martin: 253-597-8542, @KateReports
This story was originally published April 3, 2017 at 1:39 PM with the headline "Shipping traffic up for the year despite slow Lunar New Year, Seaport Alliance says."