Page 8 - Port of Hamburg Magazine 03.2019
P. 8

■ HAMBURG’S MARKETS
08 | Port of Hamburg Magazine | September 2019
VIEWPOINT
The world economy and development of markets – Infrastructure and planning
Every day, the international headlines about development of the world economy change. No-deal Brexit, trade war between China and USA, the danger in the Middle East posed by Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ attacks on tankers in international waters, a critical situation in Hong Kong with threats from China, the US threatening an embargo on account of Nord Stream 2, the government crisis in Italy and its repercussions on the Eurozone; all these events happened during a period of just two weeks. No business can react as fast as such a rapid sequence or simultaneous eruption of developments can occur.
 This makes it so difficult to make long-term fore- casts on market trends that can be described as sol- id and reliable. Nevertheless, the international port industry and shipping need to plan, and for the long term. Investments previously made for 30 years, and therefore depreciable in the long term, nowadays of- ten prove obsolete within a few years, being over- taken by the onrush of the market. If you also consid- er the periods required for planning in our Western democracies, then it becomes clear just how diffi- cult it now is to make de-
ed its North America services there because the hinterland connections and rail capacities for its main markets are so excellent. A year before, Ham- burg had lost 150,000 TEU of this business to Bre- men, then the market suddenly decided exactly the reverse, and triple that volume is now being han- dled in Hamburg. This development in the market was not predictable, since the conditions for it had already existed.
In the Port of Hamburg business with China is para- mount. For many compa-
nies, China is the country to which they are trans- ferring production, be- cause here well-trained staff coincide with low salaries, and the develop- ment of Chinese society makes the country with the world’s largest popu- lation interesting of itself as a market. What should the Port of Hamburg be doing in the light of head- lines such as ‘Escape from the Chinese work- bench’ (‘Handelsblatt’, 12 Aug. 2019), ‘Peking’s
new timidity’ (‘Handelblatt’, 13 Aug. 2019)? These ar- ticles report how China is losing shares of production to other Asian countries because wages have be- come too high, and China is no longer investing to the same extent – abroad, but also in China itself. And this even though last year brought fears of a sell-out of the German economy to China.
Naturally the trend needs to be monitored, and of course contact must be made in good time with countries such as Vietnam, Myanmar, the Philip- pines and Indonesia, which could emerge as succes- sors for types of production, and different trade routes adopted. Above all, however, one needs to at-
cisions for the future.
All the same, we must
adapt as rapidly as possi-
ble to developments on
the market, or attempt as
far as possible to antici-
pate these. Let’s take a
few examples. Container
Terminal Altenwerder was
built 15 years ago as the
world’s foremost state-of-
the-art facility, but no-
body could imagine then
that the Köhlbrand Bridge
with a clearance height of
54 metres would be too
low for the containerships
that are now in service and have problems with the height of the bridge. Is this terminal now no longer fit for the market? What has happened has shown that this is not the case, but also that in the past, specific parameters were correctly set without ad- dressing short-term market fluctuations. Altenw- erder has been further modernized, and the con- tainer rail terminal expanded to become Europe’s largest. This plus the fact that Hapag-Lloyd decided many years ago to acquire a stake in the terminal has meant that Altenwerder has not lost its attrac- tiveness and has stayed in business. THE Alliance consisting of Hapag-Lloyd and ONE has concentrat-
Investments previously
made for 30 years, and therefore depreciable in the long term, nowadays often prove obsolete within a few years, being overtaken by the onrush of the market.




































































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