HAMBURG-SUD CONFIDENT OF "RESPECTABLE RESULT" IN 2000

   Following a period of intense overcapacity, cut-throat competition, and extremely negative results in its two main trades, from Europe and the U.S. to East Coast South America, Hamburg-Sud/Columbus Line, based in Germany, is confident of delivering a respectable result for these trades in 2000.
   Joachim A. Konrad, an executive board member of Hamburg-Sud, said the build-up of overcapacity began in the late 1990s once Maersk, Sea-Land, Mediterranean Shipping Co., Evergreen and Hanjin had all discovered Latin America as a growth region.
   At the 1998 peak there was a total 450,000 TEUs of annual ship capacity compared with only 320,000 TEUs of cargo demand. Later in the year demand fell even further, to 270,000 TEUs, he said.
   Rates tumbled by $1,000 per TEU on the U.S. trade, similarly for Europe, reaching all-time lows. This cut-throat competition soon forced a capacity lowering of 100,000 TEUs for Europe and 50,000 TEUs for the U.S., he said.
   The scale-down was accompanied by withdrawals, mergers and takeovers, in which Hamburg-Sud has played no small part.
   "Freight rates have since climbed," Konrad said, "and vessel utilisation is improving.
"Our sales force in the regions is making sterling efforts to return the rates for our range of services to a level which will put us back in the black."