WEST COAST DISPUTE HITS LOS ANGELES’ OCTOBER VOLUME

WEST COAST DISPUTE HITS LOS ANGELES’ OCTOBER VOLUME    The port of Los Angeles, the largest container port in the United States, reported a 7 percent fall in total container traffic for October, to about 471,000 TEUs.
   The Californian port and all other West Coast ports were hit by a 12-day port shutdown in early October.
   Loaded inbound containers decreased by 5 percent in October, to about 253,000 TEUs. The number of loaded outbound boxes fell by 23 percent, to about 70,000. Los Angeles reported 0.4 percent fewer empty containers, amounting to about 148,000 TEUs.
   The neighboring port of Long Beach recently reported a 31-percent fall in container traffic in October, to about 301,000 TEUs.
   For the first 10 months of the 2002 calendar year, the port of Los Angeles handled 4.99 million TEUs, an increase of 16 percent over the same period in 2001.