Zepol Reports April Vessel Imports Increase 7.95%

Zepol Corp., a leading trade intelligence company, reports that U.S. import shipment volume for April, measured in TEUs, increased 7.95% from March and 5.68% from April of 2010. The total number of shipments also increased 7.25% from March and nearly 6% from April of 2010. Year to date, total TEUs are up 7.74% this year over last year.

Key Statistics from this Month’s Update:

1. Shipments departing from ports in Asia took a sharp upward turn in April, increasing 13.57% from March. Shipments from China in particular contributed greatly to this increase, exhibiting a rise of 27%. Conversely, shipments originating from South America and Europe took a downward turn, decreasing 10.48% and 6.58% respectively from March.

2. West coast ports saw a large influx of shipments in April, not surprising news as shipments from Asia were up. The Port of Long Beach saw a noteworthy increase, posting their highest number of imports, measured in shipments, for the year (126,874 shipments).

3. Evergreen Line carried a record amount of TEUs for the year in April, increasing TEUs by 30.56% from March. While the majority of carriers exhibited a decrease of TEUs from Japan for April, Evergreen Line saw an increase, up 14.26% from March and 2.23% from last April.

Methodology:

Zepol’s data is derived from Bills of Lading entered into the Automated Manifest System. This information represents the number of House manifests entered by importers of waterborne containerized goods. This is the earliest indicator for trade data available for the previous month’s import activity. The data excludes shipments from empty containers, excludes shipments labeled as freight remaining on board, and may contain other data anomalies.

Zepol Corp. is a Minnesota-based company working to provide the most complete and up-to-date trade data to organizations around the world. Zepol provides industry leading trade data tools, TradeIQ and TradeView, for analyzing the U.S. trade marketplace. TradeIQ is an up-to-date U.S. Customs import Bill of Lading database and is available through an online interface. TradeView provides access to U.S. Census data to visualize the import and export economy.

Zepol’s user base includes more than 1000 subscribers representing the leaders of every trade related industry. Customers are the most important players in the international trade community. Users include leading transportation executives, supply chain professionals, competitive intelligence practitioners, and intellectual property attorneys at:

* More than 40 of the Fortune 500
* 4 of the top 10 port authorities by volume
* 7 of the top 10 freight forwarders
* 2 of the top 3 fruit importers
* 9 of the top 20 chemical companies

For more information, visit www.zepol.com.