Cargo shipments between Honolulu and six neighbor island ports fell 2.7 percent in second quarter of 2012 from the same period a year earlier, according to a report issued today by Young Brothers Ltd., the state’s main interisland shipping company.

The decline, which followed a small increase in the first quaurter, highlights the tentative nature of Hawaii’s economic recovery, said Glenn Hong, president of Young Brothers.

“The drop in second-quarter volume reflects the continued economic uncertainty,” Hong said. “While we would prefer to reflect positive comparisions like we experienced in the first quarter of the year the neighbor island economies at least appear to be stabilizing,”  he said.

 The cargo data was included in the Young Brothers Quarterly Shipping report. The report tracks cargo volumes using a standard unit of measurement called “container/platform equivalents. Young Brothers uses the CPE measurement so it can compare cargo volumes across different sizes of containers.

For the April-through-June period the volume of cargo from Honolulu to six neighbor island ports totaled 32,884 CPEs, down 2.7 percent from 33,795 CPEs in the second quarter of 2011.
Hong noted that while overall cargo volume decline shipments of agrigultural products rose 7 percent. Young Brothers provides a discount of 30 percent to 35 percent for locally produced agricultural products.