Container Handling by Trade Areas
Container Handling by Trade Areas 2014 / 2015
Besides its container services with East Asia at 3.9 million TEU, the Port of Hamburg among the ports of Northern Europe still retains its strong position in the Baltic region. In 2015 the two main pillars of the Port of Hamburg’s container handling, the East Asia trade with NE & SE Asia and the Baltic trade with Eastern Europe and Scandinavia, both performed substantially worse than in the previous year. Whether flourishing or lagging, the heavy involvement of both trade routes in transhipment via the Port of Hamburg has the effect of leveraging throughput statistics, since as is internationally customary, in each direction transhipment is recorded once for the oceangoing containership and once for the feedership. Lower figures in core markets such as China, Russia or Poland hit throughput totals twice when transhipment is involved. In 2015 growth on other trade routes with Central America, especially Mexico, and with the United Arab Emirates failed to offset the downturn on East Asia and Baltic trade routes. Container services between Hamburg and the East Coast of North America, as well as Southern Europe and the United Kingdom, also developed well in 2015. Part of this growth was derived from imports of empty equipment. In 2015 Hamburg handled a total of 330,000 TEU on the Africa trade route, corresponding to around 3.7 percent of the Hanseatic City’s container throughput. By comparison with the previous year’s record 332,000 TEU, volume was only a marginal 0.8 percent lower. The Hamburg trend on this trade route has been upwards from 2009, since when volume has doubled. In recent years this has been powered by services with North and South Africa.
