Interisland cargo shipments decline

In a sign of slow economic growth on the neighbor islands, Young Brothers Ltd. said interisland cargo shipments between Honolulu and six neighbor islands declined by 0.6 percent in the third quarter from the same period last year.

“Our numbers appear to indicate that neighbor island economies lacked a strong economic driver and that this may well be the case through the end of this year,” said Young Brothers Vice President Roy Catalani in a prepared statement to be released today.

From July through September five neighbor island ports experienced decreases in cargo volume: Kahului was down 1.7 percent, Hilo was down 0.1 percent, Kauai was down 1.2 percent, Molokai was down 4.4 percent and Lanai was down 18.7 percent. Only one neighbor island port, Kawaihae, saw growth in cargo volume, up 3.1 percent.

The state’s largest cargo carrier said that the decline in the third quarter reversed two slight gains in the first half of the year.

“Our quarterly results over this period have consistently been in a narrow range on either side of even,” Catalani said.

Year-to-date interisland volume was virtually flat, up 0.2 percent from the first nine months of 2015, as only one of the six neighbor island ports showed cargo volume increases. Year to date, Hilo was the only port that saw growth, with a 3.5 percent increase.

In the third quarter, interisland shipments of agricultural products declined by 4.4 percent compared with the third quarter of 2015. Year-to-date agricultural volumes were down 6.7 percent.

Young Brothers also reported auto shipments declining for the third straight quarter this year. The company said this was primarily because of reduced volume from rental car agencies.

The interisland cargo carrier reported a trend of low volume in shipments of recyclable materials, due to a weak scrap metal market.

Young Brothers shipped approximately the same amount of construction materials interisland during the third quarter as it did for the comparable period last year.

Volume for inbound construction cargo grew for Kawaihae and Hilo primarily because of increased shipments by two major construction material providers in support of projects on the Big Island, including a federal highway project.

Cargo volume declined on Lanai due to a slowdown in resort renovations.

Young Brothers, which is regulated by the state, tracks cargo volumes using a standard unit measurement called container/platform equivalents, or CPEs.

For the third quarter the volume of interisland cargo totaled 32,638 CPEs, compared with 32,843 CPEs in July-September 2015.