Port of Hamburg close to breaking 10 million-TEU barrier
The Port of Hamburg in Germany handled 9.9 million TEUs in 2007, up 11.6 percent over the previous year, and expects to break the 10 million-TEU barrier this year.
Hamburg’s container throughput in 2007 puts it second behind the Dutch port Rotterdam (up 12 percent to 10.8 million TEUs) as Europe’s leading container gateway. Belgium’s Port of Antwerp, which ranks third in Europe, had higher growth than both Hamburg and Rotterdam, increasing 16.5 percent in 2007 to 8.2 million TEUs.
The total tonnage for all commodity types at Hamburg in 2007 increased 4.1 percent to 140.4 million tons. For 2008, the port anticipates total volume of cargo of about 146 million tons with container traffic growing between 8 percent and 10 percent to 10.8 million TEUs.