The largest US ports, Los Angeles and Long Beach, announced on Monday that they will once again postpone plans to charge fines to ocean carriers that fail to transport containers out of the port as soon as possible, citing recent progress in handling the backlog of cargo ships and containers off the coast of California.

These two ports handle 40% of the goods shipped to the US, and they are working around the clock to solve the problem of shipping container congestion, which is partly due to global shutdowns after the COVID-19 outbreak.

The executive directors of the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach said in a joint statement on Monday that since the new charges were announced on October 25, stranded cargo at these port terminals has been reduced by 37%. The port board will continue to monitor progress and reassess whether to charge this fee on December 13 (next Monday).