During the first nine months of 2012, Port of Hamburg handled total tonnage of 98.1 million tonnes, down 0.8 per cent from a year earlier. Container traffic (6.7 million TEUs) fell 0.6 per cent. The downturn in container traffic was due to a decline in trade with China. During the first nine months of 2012, Port of Hamburg handled 2.0 million TEUs in trade with China, which represented a decline of 11.6 per cent compared to 2011. All other container trade lanes produced positive increases.
A total of 5.8 million TEUs of loaded containers was handled, representing an increase of 1.8 per cent. One half of the loaded containers (2.9 million TEUs) were loaded for export destinations, and represented an increase in loadings of 6.9 per cent. The number of loaded import containers (also 2.9 million TEUs) was down by 2.6 per cent compared to 2011.
At 1.6 million tonnes, total volume of non-containerized general cargo was down 15.4 per cent compared to 2011. Exports of one million tonnes were up by 2.6 per cent, but imports of 545,000 tonnes were 36.2 per cent below 2011 levels. Exports consisted primarily of vehicles, heavy cargoes and project cargo.
“In the first three quarters of the year, Port of Hamburg profited from a strong trend in exports, which not only produced solid results in container throughput, but was also responsible for growing export volumes of general cargo”, said Claudia Roller, CEO of Port of Hamburg Marketing.