Port of Charleston Among Top 10 Import Facilities in U.S.

The Port of Charleston was seventh-busiest in the United States in 2017 for imported cargo, according to a report by global trade analyst Descartes Datamyne.

The Charleston facility in 2017 handled 950,930 imported cargo containers measured in 20-foot increments. That's a 6.65 percent increase over the previous year. In terms of dollar value, the imports amounted to $47.1 billion — a 2.32 percent increase over 2016 totals.

Imports have declined slightly through the first four months of 2018, according to the State Ports Authority, which reported 315,324 loaded containers for the period. That's off last year's numbers for the same period by 1.8 percent.

The Port of Los Angeles continued to rank No. 1 in the country, with nearly 4.7 million imported 20-foot containers valued at about $250 billion in 2017. The Port of New York-New Jersey topped East Coast facilities — and came in third nationally — with more than 3.3 million imported cargo boxes valued at $165 billion.

The Port of Philadelphia saw the largest increase in year-over-year import volume among the top U.S. ports at 21.9 percent in 2017, according to a report in The Maritime Executive. The publication said Philadelphia's increase was driven in part by an expansion and the completion of the deepening of the Delaware River shipping channel.

Cutting commitments

Volvo Cars has scratched the 2019 Geneva Car Show off its calendar.

The Swedish automaker that's building a $1.1 billion manufacturing campus in Berkeley County, said it won't attend that car show and might skip others unless it has some specific information it needs to relay to the automotive industry.

"The ongoing change in the car industry is creating new audiences for Volvo Cars and new ways of bringing products to the market," Bjorn Annwall, the automaker's senior vice president of strategy, brand and retail, said in a statement.

"Automatic attendance at traditional industry events is no longer viable — we must tailor our communications based on how the options complement our messaging, timing and the nature of the technology we are presenting," Annwall said.

Volvo's decision is part of a growing trend among automakers who are choosing to skip auto shows that used to be a must, according to Automotive News Europe.

Volvo is still planning to hold an unveiling ceremony for the redesigned S60 sedan that will be built at its Charleston area plant off Interstate 26 near Ridgeville. That car will make its debut on June 20.

The S60 is the first car to be produced at Volvo's only North American plant, where roughly 4,000 people eventually will work. Starting in 2021, Volvo will add XC90 SUV production to a second line at the site.

The Berkeley County plant eventually will turn out 150,000 cars per year, with about half of them exported from the Port of Charleston to markets worldwide.

Meanwhile, Volvo reported U.S. sales of 9,338 vehicles for the month of May, an increase of 50.6 percent from the same period last year. Year-to-date, the automaker has sold 37,754 vehicles in the United States, an increase of 40.9 percent from the previous year. Sales of Volvo's three SUV models — the XC90, XC60 and XC40 — accounted for 76 percent of sales in May.