The US west coast port of Tacoma saw full-year container volumes in 2009 decline by 17% on the year before, to 1.55m teu.

It was the second consecutive year that the port's box throughput fell �C 2008's throughput of 1.86m teu was down 3% on 2007's record 1.92m teu.

Despite industry-wide signs of a fledgling recovery, Tacoma's volumes for January 2010 were 15% down on January 2009, at 93,000teu.