U.S.-bound shipments see reduced declines in June, reports Panjiva

While the COVID-19 pandemic continues to be the dominant narrative in container shipping, data recently issued by global trade intelligence firm Panjiva continued to point to declines for United States-bound waterborne shipments.

Containerized June shipments—at 2,162,857 TEU (Twenty-Foot Equivalent Units)—were down 8.6% annually, and were off 8.3% annually, at 12,928,074 TEU. While this represented a nearly 9% decline, it marks an uptick from May’s 19.6% annual decline.

Panjiva observed in a research note that June’s decline is in line with those seen in 2015 and 2016, which was a challenging period for the container shipping sector, with major financial issues and challenges.

United States-bound shipments out of China were down 1.7% annually, in June, with imports from Asia not including China were off 13.9%. India and Japan were down 35.8% and 41.4%, respectively. Panjiva noted that Japan’s decrease was primarily due to what it called “a collapse in activity in the automotive industry.”

As for other regions, shipments out of the European Union fell for the seventh straight month, with Panjiva noting that the EU is up against significant risks, should a trade war between the United States and EU occur.

On a product level, U.S.-bound healthcare shipments, paced primarily by PPE and pharmaceuticals, were up 15.7%, with pharmaceuticals alone up 46.6%. And consumer staples—including household and personal care products and food restocking—headed up 9.6%.   

Energy and consumer discretionary sector shipments were down 15.1% and 12.9%, respectively, in June, and construction equipment and building product shipments were down 6.5%, while industrial machinery and agricultural shipments were up 4.0% and 12.5%, respectively, with Panjiva saying those two readings serve as green shoots of recovery.

Panjiva Research Director Chris Rogers said that June’s numbers were in line with expectations.

“We are still in a downturn, which is slowing,” he said. “That reflects the fact that shops and industries are re-opening, and it is happening quickly. All the deliveries that we saw in June were for orders placed in April and May.”

As for how things could play out in the second half of 2020, Rogers said that the outlook is going to be highly dependent on the U.S. government’s response to increasing numbers of COVID-19 cases.

“I don’t see an appetite in the U.S. or many other places for any type of wide scale industrial lockdown like we saw earlier in the year,” he said. “The opening of schools and restaurants and pubs will probably be held back, but there are no signs of any politicians taking any further risks to the economy, too. People are going back to work and wearing masks on the subway and will be working at factories, at lower capacity, and people will continue to work from home and buying goods online. In theory, even if we do get a resurgence of cases, we are unlikely to see the downturn in global trade activity that we saw in the first half of this year.”