Growth for Port of Hamburg

It reached a total of 138.2m tonnes of seaborne cargo throughput in the general and bulk cargo segments.

Axel Matter, joint CEO of the Port of Hamburg Marketing, explained: “Seaborne cargo throughput in the Port of Hamburg again developed upwards with an increase of 0.3%. Stronger general cargo throughput offset a slight downturn in bulk cargo throughput. The port of Hamburg is also contemplating a positive trend for 2017.”

Container throughput picked up during the second half of the year, achieving a 1% advance over twelve months to 8.9m TEU.

The container traffic with Asia that is of such special importance for the Port of Hamburg was up by 1.3% at 4.7m TEU.

Also dominating in Hamburg, was container throughput with Chinese ports made good progress, increasing by 1.6% to 2.6m TEU.

“Despite lower transhipment-container services by feederships to/from Sweden and Poland, on total throughput the port can report an upward trend for both imports and exports. Growth was primarily generated by container services with Asia and the Americas,” added Mr Mattern.

On both imports and exports, the Port of Hamburg’s throughput balance for 2016 reflected growth. At 4.6m TEU, imports were up by 1.2%, while exports at 4.3m TEU scored a 0.7% advance.

“Hamburg is further extending its position as Europe’s leading rail port. In 2016, 46.4m tonnes of freight (up 1.5%) and 2.4m TEU (up 2.4%) were transported in/out of the port by rail. We are delighted about this record result. Now at 46.6%, the proportion of freight transported by rail received a further boost,” explained Ingo Egloff, joint CEO of Port of Hamburg Marketing.

Against the trend for lower volumes on rail freight traffic in Germany, at 46.4m tonnes the volume transported into/out of the Port of Hamburg was 1.5% higher.

“In a comparison with ports in Europe, the highest number of connections and the great frequency of train departures to/from Hamburg are very advantageous in offering shippers in industry and commerce rapid handling of their export and import cargoes,” concluded Mr Egloff.