Port of Hamburg throughput declines 5.4% in 2015

In container volumes alone, the German port experienced a 9.3 percent year-over-year decline to 8.8 million TEUs, which primarily resulted from lower volumes handled to and from China, Russia and Poland.    The Port of Hamburg, situated between the North Sea and the Baltic Sea in Northern Germany, handled 137.8 million tons of seaborne cargo in 2015, a 5.4 percent decline from 2014, the port said.
   Container volumes declined 9.3 percent year-over-year to 8.8 million TEUs, primarily the result of lower volumes handled to and from China, Russia and Poland.
   Hamburg has stronger container trade ties with the Baltic region compared to other Northern European ports, such as Antwerp or Rotterdam, Port of Hamburg Marketing Executive Board Member Axel Mattern said. However, this is one of the reasons that Hamburg was hit harder than the abovementioned two ports by weakness in China’s foreign trade and Russia’s economic issues, since a large amount of cargo handled in Hamburg for China and Russia is transshipped via Hamburg and loaded from oceangoing container vessels onto feeder vessels, Mattern explained.
   Bulk cargo volumes at the port rose 5.8 percent from 2014 to 45.5 million tons, with grab cargo dominating the bulk cargo sector at 22.3 million tons, followed by liquid bulk cargo at 14 million tons and agri-bulk cargo at 9.2 million tons.
   Non-containerized general cargoes totaled 1.7 million tons in 2015, a 14.1 percent decline from the previous year.