Hamburg port sees healthy first half

Hamburg port sees healthy first half    The Port of Hamburg's first half container volume rose 17.4 percent to about 4.3 million TEUs, thanks to new and expanded liners services, the German port said Monday.
   'Among the factors generating additional throughput volumes were new or expanded liner services,' the port said in a statement. 'At the same time, larger ship units were increasingly being deployed on new and existing liner services.'
   The port also pointed to a healthy balance of imports and exports, with exports at 21.4 million tons (up 13.9 percent) and imports at 22.1 million tons (up 17.7 percent).
   'With its almost perfectly balanced volumes of exports and imports the Port of Hamburg is an exceedingly attractive port location in northern Europe for shipping lines and other customers,' said Claudia Roller, chief executive officer at Port of Hamburg Marketing. 'The throughput figures for the first half of the year are very gratifying.'
   Hamburg's container throughput traffic with European ports rose 25.9 percent to 1.2 million TEUs, while throughput with North, Central and South America, rose 21.2 percent to 460,000 TEUs.
   'We are delighted at the excellent development of container traffic with the USA, with throughput reaching 109,000 TEUs in the first six months, an increase of 47.4 percent on the same period of the previous year,' Roller said. 'The USA therefore rose from 16th to ninth place among Hamburg's leading partners for container services. During the first half alone, Hamburg succeeded in gaining two additional transatlantic services. A third North America service commenced at the beginning of August and will generate additional growth.'
   Container volume in trades to Africa rose 21.2 percent to 117,000 TEUs, while throughput with Asia grew 12.9 percent to 2.5 million TEUs. Volume to and from China, Hamburg's largest trading partner in terms of container throughput, rose 14.7 percent to 1.4 million TEUs.