Nautic

Infrastructural bottlenecks in port hinterland traffic are becoming increasingly acute, irrespective of the mode of transport, and are fuelling growing alarm among all the players involved. Such was the universal feeling at the parliamentary evening in Berlin organized by Port of Hamburg Marketing and attended by Peter Ramsauer, Germany’s Minister of Transport, and around 150 high-ranking representatives of the world of politics, business and trade associations.

Hamburg was the first continental European port of call on the maiden voyage of the CMA CGM Marco Polo. The mega-ship, with a capacity of 16,020 standard containers, is being handled at the HHLA Container Terminal Burchardkai. The French shipping company CMA CGM sets great store by Hamburg because of its geographic location and hinterland links.

The Port of Hamburg’s overall results for the first nine months characterized by export growth and an import downturn

In the first nine months of 2012 the Port of Hamburg achieved total throughput of 98.1 million tons (down 0.8 percent). General cargo throughput at 69.2 million tons was just ahead of last year’s figure (up 0.2 percent). Bulk cargo throughput at 28.8 million tons stayed behind the previous year’s (down 3.3 percent).

In the first six months of 2012 the Port of Hamburg reported total throughput of 65.8 million tons (up 2.7 percent). At 45 million tons or 4.4 million TEU (20-ft standard containers), the container throughput that predominates in Hamburg as a universal port achieved a gain of 1.9 percent. The reason for this relatively modest growth was the total for empty containers, whereas throughput of loaded containers grew up by 4.7 percent to 3.8 million TEU. Weaker growth rates compared to the 2011 first half are explained by the unusually strong growth achieved at that time.