California exports, off to a fast start through the first four months of this year, cooled off a bit in May. California businesses shipped merchandise valued at $13.49 billion in May, up a modest 1 percent from $13.35 billion in the same month last year.
Import growth slowed in May at the nation’s dominant West Coast container ports, as broad changes in the global ocean shipping sector appeared to shift supply chain routes toward the East Coast. The neighboring ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, Calif., which handle the largest volume of container cargo among U.S. ports, reported a total of 749,645 loaded inbound 20-foot equivalent units, or TEUs, a standard measure for container cargo, last month. That was a 2.5% increase over the same period last year, pulling back after year-over-year surges of 26% and 12% in March and April.
In a last-ditch effort to survive, bankrupt U.S. solar panel maker Suniva Inc. asked the Trump administration Wednesday to impose trade tariffs on all foreign-made solar cells.
California merchandise exports closed out a strong second half of last year with an exceptional December, pushing the state’s 2016 total to nearly $164 billion.
The trade gap for goods and services increased 6.8% from a month earlier to a seasonally adjusted $45.24 billion in November, the Commerce Department said Friday. That took the monthly deficit to its highest level since February.
Exports fell 1.8% from September, the largest drop since January, and imports rose 1.3% in October. The fall in exports included declining shipments of soybeans, corn and consumer goods while the import rise included stronger domestic demand for foreign-made pharmaceuticals, cellphones and capital goods.
The U.S. trade deficit contracted sharply in September as foreign companies snapped up American-made goods, helping the economy rebound from an ugly first half of the year.
California exports sagged in September, deflating momentum and optimism prompted by a strong rally in Golden State shipments abroad in August.
Fresh data seem to suggest the U.S. economy is revving up, with growth rising at its fastest pace in two years. Yet a deeper look at the numbers reveals that strength may be overstated. . . Capital Economics estimates that a full 0.9 percent of the GDP gain in the third quarter was driven by the one-off surge in soybean exports alone — a gain the research firm expects be reversed in the final three months of the year. . . Outside of exports and inventories, meanwhile, the news for the economy was less encouraging. Consumption disappointed, residential investment dropped 6.2 percent, and equipment investment fell 2.7 percent.
The trade gap increased 3.0% from a month earlier to a seasonally adjusted $40.73 billion in August, the Commerce Department said Wednesday. Imports rose 1.2% and exports rose 0.8%.
Global container volumes are on track for zero growth this year, which would mark the sector’s worst performance since the 2009 economic crisis and a sure catalyst for further bankruptcies and possible acquisitions in the beleaguered shipping industry, shipping executives said.
Carbon emissions from cars in the Chinese city of Chengdu could be underestimated by more than half under conventional testing methods, according to the preliminary results of a study released on Wednesday.
The fate of BNSF Railway Co.’s new terminal near the Port of Los Angeles is now in jeopardy even though it has been in development for 10 years at a cost of more than $50 million and would provide badly needed rail capacity.
The trade gap increased 5.3% from March to a seasonally adjusted $37.44 billion, the Commerce Department said Friday. Exports of goods and services rose 1.5% while imports climbed 2.1%.
According to findings of a recent survey conducted by the Los Angeles County Business Federations (BizFed), employers named transportation as one of their top business concerns, second only to taxes and fees. Among 22 categories examined, transportation maintained its four-year upward trajectory on the list of top concerns, moving to the number two spot in 2016 from the number four spot in 2015. In 2013, transportation ranked as the number ten concern of employers.