U.S. import volume in November, measured in twenty-foot-containers, is down 12.8 percent from October and another 15.2 percent from November of last year. The total number of TEUs imported for the month was 1,245,889. This is the lowest amount of U.S. imports for the month of November since 2003.

The Panama Canal is due for at least one additional expansion, according to Alberto Aleman Zubieta, immediate past commissioner of the Panama Canal Authority.

A potential labor strike by longshoremen along the U.S. East and Gulf Coasts at the end of the year could have devastating economic consequences as inventory depletion, rerouting, hoarding, and price speculation ripple through supply chains of global companies, according to a report from the Marsh research firm.

Import cargo volume at the nation's major retail container ports is expected to increase 3.9 percent in December despite a strike that closed the nation's largest port complex for the first few days of the month, but retailers are keeping a close watch on a possible strike on the East Coast and Gulf Coast, according to the monthly Global Port Tracker report released today by the National Retail Federation and Hackett Associates.

CaroTrans, a non-vessel operating common carrier and ocean freight consolidator, has introduced four direct, less-than-containerload services from China to Valparaiso, Chile.

Virgin Atlantic Cargo has resumed its winter season flights from Cape Town, South Africa.

Professor Yossi Sheffi, director of the MIT Center for Transportation and Logistics, describes the development of logistics clusters and their considerable economic advantages, which include the creation of steady, well paying jobs for both blue- and white-collar workers.