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Port of Hamburg: Third place after Rotterdam and Antwerp
Photo: Z1029 Maurizio Gambarini/ dpa/dpaweb
The Port of Hamburg handled significantly fewer goods last year than in 2021. A total of 119.9 million tons of sea freight went over the quay edges, said the head of Port of Hamburg Marketing, Axel Mattern.
That is 8.8 million tons or 6.8 percent less than in 2021.
Imports accounted for 69.6 million tons and exports for 50.3 million tons.
Reasons for the decline are the Ukraine war, the corona pandemic and inflation, but also labor disputes in the port, full warehouses, lower demand and disrupted supply chains.
"These things alone would have been an extremely challenging story," says Mattern.
»But we had to do all of them at the same time last year.«
Container handling – accounting for almost 70 percent of total handling in the Port of Hamburg – fell by 400,000 or 5.1 percent to 8.3 million standard containers (TEU).
The import of sea containers fell by 6.1 percent to 4.2 million TEU, the export by 4.1 percent to 4.1 million TEU.
The throughput dropped by 9.8 and 12.3 percent, especially in the third and fourth quarters, said Mattern.
In view of the increasing number of particularly large container ships arriving and departing, he urged the federal government to live up to its responsibility in maintaining the Elbe federal waterway.
“We are really on the brink of failing a reform of the Federal Waterways and Shipping Administration that began years ago,” complained Mattern.
The administration is "a catastrophe before the Lord."
This can be seen not only in the inland waters, but also in the German Bight in the seaward approaches.
No mobile phone coverage in the German Bight
For example, there is no coordination office at the federal level.
“Every airport has a control tower, and of course there is also air traffic control for Germany.” There is nothing of the sort in shipping.
But that's not all: there is still no mobile phone coverage in the German Bight.
It's no joke, Mattern complained.
Pilots would have to position the 400 meter long and 60 meter wide container giants "with gut feeling and Norddeich radio via coast radio".
The sanctions against Russia over the attack in Ukraine are having an impact on the port.
"We have a disproportionate decline in the Baltic Sea, eleven percent," said Mattern.
Handling with Russia has fallen by 76.2 percent.
On the other hand, throughput with Poland increased by 24.3 percent to 294,000 TEU and Finland by 22.3 percent to 213,000 TEU.
While Russia was recently in 4th place among the top partner countries, the country has now slipped to 27th place.
Container traffic and coal imports from Russia have almost completely stopped, Mattern said.
General cargo throughput fell by a total of 5.8 percent to 83.7 million tons, bulk cargo fell by 8.9 percent to 36.2 million tons.
Above all, crude oil imports fell by 93.9 percent because a refinery was completely shut down.
Correspondingly, the export of petroleum products fell by 25 percent.
80 percent of European imports and exports
China remains the most important trading partner.
Even if handling fell by 3.8 percent to 2.46 million TEU, more Chinese containers are still being handled than in the next eight trading countries combined.
In US traffic - second place in the ranking - a slight decline of 2.1 percent to 605,000 TEU was recorded, which was offset by an increase in Canada traffic, said Mattern.
Despite the decline, Hamburg was able to maintain its third place among the most important continental European North Sea ports.
It is estimated that Rotterdam, number one, is down 3.1 percent, said Mattern.
Second place Antwerp had to cope with a drop of 5.2 percent.
According to Mattern, things did not go well for the Bremen ports either, with a drop of 8.9 percent.
All North Range ports together lost 4.8 percent.
About 80 percent of European imports and exports are processed via the North Range.
mamk/dpa
