Cargo traffic grows at L.A., Long Beach ports

The ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, the nation’s busiest cargo complex, posted double-digit growth in freight traffic during November, usually a month in which cargo movement is winding down for the year.

It was another unexpectedly good showing, although trade experts don’t expect the pace to continue.

“I’m watching with bemusement like everyone else,” said Nancy Sidhu, chief economist for the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp. “We will continue to grow next year as the economy grows, but I don’t think we’ll keep seeing these double-digit increases.”

The transport of cargo through the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, which rank first and second in the nation in the number of containers they move, is an important part of the Southern California economy. International trade provides more than 500,000 jobs in the region.

“This is an encouraging sign. It’s looking like we’re going to end 2010 up about 17% ahead of last year, which is much higher than we thought,” said Phillip Sanfield, spokesman for the Port of Los Angeles.

Art Wong, his counterpart at the Port of Long Beach, said: “We are extremely pleased. We thought we might not reach our peak again for three to five years, but it may come a lot sooner than that.”

At the Port of Los Angeles, imports climbed almost 12% in November to 333,710 containers, up from 298,777 during the same month a year earlier. Exports rose more than 14% to 170,319, up from 149,148 in November 2009.

At Long Beach, the numbers were even stronger. Imports there climbed more than 20% to 274,480 containers in November, up from 228,347 a year earlier. Exports rose nearly 25% to 142,628 containers compared with the previous November.

Through the first 11 months of 2010, both ports have experienced a strong rebound from 2009, which was the worst year for the ports in five years. Traffic at the Port of Los Angeles, including empties, is up more than 16% to 7.2 million containers, compared with 6.2 million in 2009. At Long Beach, cargo traffic rose to more than 5.7 million containers, up nearly 25% from the January-through-November period.

Together the two ports usually rank fifth or sixth in the world among commercial seaports.

Even the empty containers play a role, Sidhu said, and their movement showed a similarly strong upswing in November. There were 162,941 empties that moved through Los Angeles in November, up more than 23% compared with a year earlier. There were 141,199 empties that moved through Long Beach, up nearly 34%.

Sidhu said that the large number of empties was a continuing sign of inventory replenishment and the need to speed those boxes back to factories in Asia where they could be filled with new goods for sale in the U.S. and other places abroad.

“We import more than we export, and those items have to come back here in containers,” said Sidhu, also noting that dockworkers, truckers and railroad workers get paid to move all of the containers, whether or not they contain products.

ron.white@latimes.com