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Last month, the Port of Los Angeles handled 650,452 20-foot equivalent units (TEUs), up 8.3 percent compared with March 2011 volume.

Loaded import container volume climbed 9.3 percent to 324,758 TEUs, total loaded container volume rose 4.7 percent to 512,913 TEUs and total empty container volume jumped 24 percent to 137,539 TEUs. But the number of loaded export containers declined 2.4 percent to 188,155 TEUs.

At the Port of Long Beach, Calif., total March volume climbed 12 percent year over year to 461,590 TEUs. The number of import containers soared 18.3 percent to 226,141 TEUs, export containers rose 9.9 percent to 144,838 TEUs and total empty containers inched up 1.5 percent to 90,611 TEUs.

“After a drop [in February], partly attributed to the Chinese New Year, cargo bounced back in March,” port officials said in a prepared statement, adding that analysts expect modest trade volume growth for the remainder of 2012.

In the first quarter, the port’s total volume tumbled 9.1 percent to 2.76 million TEUs compared with first-quarter 2011 statistics.