Traffic out of the Port of Los Angeles is on a steady incline this year. In fact, the month of March saw a significant rise in use following an increase in production in China. Chinese production had slowed previously during the New Year in February.

Cargo shipments increased by 8.3 percent in March compared to the same month last year. Imports were the primary reason for the growth, with them increasing 9.3 percent overall.

It's normal for factories to shut down for a week for the lunar New Year in China. This always drives down shipping numbers for the month of February. Thankfully, March made up for this lull with 325,000 shipping containers coming through the port.

Unfortunately, this surge didn't translate to exports, which dropped 2.4 percent to 188,155 containers. Prior to this, exports had been on the upswing for 21 months. However, officials aren't too concerned about this drop and feel confident that exports will be on the rise again very soon. And hopefully the imports will continue to be just as fruitful.

(Source)