Cargo Biz Grows at Hamburg Port

Germany’s largest universal port, the Port of Hamburg, reported a container throughput of 7 million TEUs for the first three quarters of this year, representing a growth of 6.9 percent year-over-year.

The climb in container handling is primarily attributable to the four new transatlantic services, plus four new Baltic feeder services. Since the beginning of the year, the new transatlantic services operated by Hapag-Lloyd and ONE have connected Hamburg with ports in the USA, Canada and Mexico.

Hamburg regained market share up of 0.7 percentage points in competition with other major container ports, whose growth averaged 3.4 percent. The excellent container handling trend in the rail segment also boosted seaport-hinterland services.

Transporting 2.1 million TEU in the first nine months, these attained 11.9 percent growth. At 31.6 million tons – down 2.1 percent – bulk cargo throughput was slightly below last year’s.

During the first three quarters of 2109, the Port of Hamburg’s transhipment and hinterland services proved extremely successful. Transhipment totals profited from the new container liner services that generated additional volumes for Hamburg’s extensive network of feeder connections.

“The extremely positive trend for the Port of Hamburg this year was also very evident for the rail sector,” said Jens Meier, CEO of Hamburg Port Authority. “The Port Railway managed to top its own record of 694,500 containers, set in the first quarter of 2019, by shifting 698,500 containers in the third. That’s impressive proof of the Port of Hamburg’s potential and efficiency.”

A total of 31.6 million tons of bulk cargoes were handled in Hamburg in the first nine months of 2019. Compared to the same period of the previous year, this meant a slight 2.1 percent downturn.