Face Masks for Hamburg and the Port of Hamburg

On May 18, Port of Hamburg Marketing received a donation of several thousand protective masks from the government of the Chinese province Henan and the Muyuan Industrial Group Co., Ltd.

"On behalf of the Port of Hamburg we would like to thank our Chinese partners and friends. We greatly appreciate this donation of masks in these challenging times. With this we can provide valuable support for the work in the port", says Axel Mattern, CEO of Port of Hamburg Marketing, expressing his gratitude.

The Port of Hamburg and Henan Province are long-standing partners. They are linked by regular train connections running along the New Silk Road between the provincial capital Zhengzhou and Hamburg. Mutual visits by delegations from business and politics are also part of the exchange between the partners. Relations are also cultivated by the Hamburg Liaison Office China in Shanghai, which also coordinated this donation campaign between China and Germany.

Zhengzhou International Hub Development (ZIH) transported the masks free of charge. The company is one of the major rail operators on the New Silk Road and has a branch office in Hamburg. ZIH has been operating the rail service between the hubs Zhengzhou and Hamburg since 2013 and the volume of the front haul and back haul on this route has traditionally been well-balanced.

On the German side, the donation was also supported by the Society for German-Chinese Understanding e.V. (GDCV e.V.), which also received a generous donation of masks. The GDCV passes on most of its donation to schools, youth orchestras and retirement homes in Hamburg.

Port of Hamburg Marketing gave several thousand masks to the Seaman’s mission “Duckdalben” which is urgently in need for protective medical equipment in their daily operations. In addition, masks are donated to Gesamthafenbetriebs-Gesellschaft (GHB) to ensure smooth operations in the port. GHB is a personnel service agency for Hamburg's port industry and in this capacity provides specialist personnel in port and warehouse logistics.

The Port of Hamburg has a throughput of about 2.6 million TEU of seaborne containers for China annually. Almost one-third of all containers passing through Germany’s largest seaport have China as their destination or origin. In 2019, 204 marketed weekly connections were offered carrying around 100,000 TEU between Hamburg and 20 Chinese destinations.