Negative Growth for air imports into USA in May 2008

AMSTERDAM, July 22, 2008 – Air cargo imports into the USA in May 2008 reached a 5 year historically low growth: compared to the same month in the previous year, air cargo imports decreased by 6.7%.

Seabury Cargo Advisory’s Global Trade Database shows that, with a 27% drop in air imports in May, land vehicles & parts was the hardest hit product group. Air imports of vehicle parts from Japan, Italy and Mexico, all large manufacturing countries, declined with more than 40%.

In absolute terms, imports of fashion goods declined most significantly: in May 2008 air imports were 7,500 tons (-19%) less than in May 2007. Most of this decrease can be attributed to significantly lower exports from China, Indonesia and India.

The only commodity group with positive air import growth in May was high tech: +9%. Especially China’s high tech exports to the US showed a strong positive growth compared to the same month last year: phone parts +65% and laptops +59%. Nevertheless, high tech imports from Germany, Taiwan, Singapore and Thailand dropped with on average 15%.

With a growth rate of 2.3%, Midwest South was the only region in the US with increasing air imports in May 2008. Especially the Houston area experienced growth: +26%, which was mainly caused by an increase of high tech exports from Japan and China. The largest import decline, both in absolute and relative terms, was in the Atlantic South East region, which was mainly due to large import drops in the customs regions of Savannah, GA (-24%) and Wilmington, NC (-29%).