The Port of Hamburg is the central located hub port and logistics centre in Northern Europe. For Finland’s import and export industry Hamburg is an important overseas port offering worldwide liner services and, as a universal port, all special services for project cargo and bulk cargo. Hamburg is for example the most important container port in foreign trade with China and India, ahead of all other major ports in Europe.

Finland’s exports via Hamburg increased significantly in the first half-year 2010 with 13.7 per cent, amounting to a total of 910,000 tons of sea-borne cargo. Imports via Hamburg declined with a total of 620,000 tons (-5.3 per cent). Some 90 per cent of this volume is going to or coming from Finland as containerized cargo. From and to ports in Finland 127,000 TEU were transhiped via Hamburg by feeder services in the first half-year 2010. Thus, Finland is one of Hamburg’s most important handling partners in sea-borne container traffic, ranking at place 6 in the first half-year of 2010. Main cargos exported from Finland via Hamburg include paper, wood, machinery and chemical products. Finnish imports are dominated by manufactured goods, beverages, clothing and textiles as well as fodders. Finnish ports have an important function as transit ports for Russian import and export.

Regular feeder services connect Hamburg and Finland, such as CMA CGM, Samskip, Stella, Team Lines and Unifeeder and ensure that sea-borne cargo can be transhiped between Hamburg and Finnish ports every day. Finland’s major ports in container traffic from and to Hamburg are Helsinki and Kotka.