Eurogate handles 10.5 million TEUs in 2003

Eurogate handles 10.5 million TEUs in 2003    Eurogate, the large German-based port and logistics group, expects to handle a total of 10.5 million TEUs in 2003, 13 percent more than its 9.3-million-TEU throughput in 2002.
   Eurogate runs container terminals in the German ports of Bremerhaven and Hamburg, and in Italy and Portugal.
   The proportion of the group’s box throughput handled by the German terminals in Bremerhaven and Hamburg was unchanged, at 50 percent, with a volume of about 5.3 million TEUs in 2003.
   The growth rate at the Hamburg container terminal was about 20 percent, a higher rate of growth than the seven percent experienced in Bremerhaven.
   Eurogate said that Asian traffic at its terminals is currently running substantially faster than traffic to America, but its Bremerhaven terminal is largely dependent on transatlantic traffic.
   Eurogate describes itself as the “number one in European container logistics.”
   BLG Logistics Group, part of Eurogate, expects to have revenues sales of 580 million euros ($709 million) in 2003, 9 percent more than in the previous year. It predicts an 11-percent increase in profit to 15 million euros ($18 million) in 2003.
   BLG is budgeting a profit of 25 million euros ($31 million) for 2004.
   BLG said it was preoccupied by the attempt of the European Commission to revise the regulations for access to port services in Europe.
   On Nov. 20, the European Parliament rejected the EC port liberalization directive. “In the ZDS – the central association of German seaport operators – we welcome the rejection of the port package in agreement with all German, and also at least most of the European, terminal operators,” BLG said in a statement.