The closure of all the ports on the US West Coast in an industrial dispute is threatening major damage to Asia's export-led economies.

Despite an intervention by the White House on Monday, the run-up to the November and December Christmas shopping spree is facing extreme disruption.

"For the Asian economies, the timing of the stoppage could not have come at a more difficult time," Singapore-based bank BNP Paribas Peregrine said in a research note.

"September and October tend to be the peak months of imports by the US from Asia owing to the Christmas season."

Isolated island

Official concern at the possible effects of the lockdown is now coming from a number of Asian nations.

In Singapore, Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong said that if the dispute - which began on 29 September - goes on for more than two weeks the consequences for the trade-dependent island state could be stark.

"As of now we have not revised our forecast (of 3-4% growth for 2002)," he said at a World Economic Forum meeting.

"In a months' time when things are a little bit clearer, we may be forced to revise it."

Stacked to the gunwales

And in South Korea, companies made no secret of the extent to which the lockdown is hitting their financial health.

Trade worth $354m had already been lost, the Korea International Trade Investment Association said, a total of 63% of exports and imports to the US.

Electronics makers Samsung and LG both have computers, mobiles, air conditioners and microwave ovens stacked high on ships waiting to unload, the companies said.

And more than 1,500 vehicles made by Hyundai and Kia are also caught in the backlog.

Arm twisting

The dispute has so far defied arbitration, and the White House - reluctant until now to intervene with Congressional elections less than a month away - could step in as early as next week.

If a federal judge can be persuaded the dispute risks "imperilling the national health or safety", the Taft-Hartley Act allows a forced return to work for the 10,500 workers concerned for up to 80 days.

Management insists it locked out workers because they were slowing down cargo handling by working strictly to safety rules and refusing to accept modernisation.

But the union position is that its members are simply responding to management neglect of safety issues, as well as trying to ensure that "modernisation" does not lead to mass layoffs.