America’s largest ports, including the Port at Long Beach California appears to be poised for a strong recovery.  Cargo volume at ports on the Atlantic, Pacific and Gulf coasts were higher in December than a year earlier, the first such gain in 28 months, according to the National Retail Federation.

Komar Distribution concurs with that data as KDS witnessed an increase in retail goods shipments from their manufacturing partners overseas.  KDS saw a spike in retail goods pass through their California Distribution Warehousing facilities in December and the trend continues into the New Year.  One area that showed great promise was in retail apparel where KDS is a specialist in Apparel Warehouse services to America’s largest retail chains.

Economists who track volume at the nation’s busiest ports each month called the new report the strongest sign yet that the bottom-dwelling days are over.  From channel checks with Komar Distribution Services (KDS) clientele, the future shipment and distribution pipeline looks to be on a rebound.

According to the Los Angeles Times article:

“It’s the first strong sign that a recovery is finally underway, and it’s being driven mostly by retailers restocking their inventories and by the impact of the economic stimulus package,” said Ben Hackett, founder of Hackett Associates, a business consulting firm that tracks seaport, railroad and trucking industry volumes for some of the nation’s biggest retailers.

Hackett predicted that monthly imports would remain above last year’s levels for at least the first half of 2010.

Hackett said the strongest gains in volume would be on the West Coast. That’s particularly important because international trade provides so many of the region’s jobs. The company tracked activity at ports in Los Angeles, Long Beach, Oakland, Seattle and Tacoma on the West Coast; New York/New Jersey, Virginia, Charleston, S.C., and Savannah, Ga., on the East Coast; and Houston on the Gulf Coast. In 2009, a total of 12.7 million containers came into those ports, the lowest figures since 2003 and a decline of 17% from the 15.2 million in import containers in 2008. But there was a slight uptick of 1.7% in December from a year earlier.

At L.A. and Long Beach, the improvement will be most obvious in February, the report said, when about 496,000 containers are expected to come into the twin ports, which would be an increase of 40% from February 2009, the ports’ worst month of the recession.

The report said that Los Angeles and Long Beach should see growth of about 3%, or about 3.3 million containers, through June, compared with the first half of 2009.

Local port directors have been looking for just such an indication for several months. L.A. and Long Beach are the two busiest container ports in the U.S., followed by New York/New Jersey and Savannah.

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