Tschentscher presents guidelines for port policy

Created: 04/06/2022Updated: 04/06/2022 21:57

Mayor Peter Tschentscher (SPD) speaks at a meeting of the Hamburg Parliament.

© Jonas Walzberg/dpa/archive image

Hamburg is a port city and an industrial location.

Everything that happens in the port has a major impact on the city's economic development.

A port development plan is currently in the works - the mayor is already giving a foretaste.

Hamburg - Mayor Peter Tschentscher presented the guidelines for a new Hamburg port policy to the Übersee-Club.

"The central goal of the new port policy is to keep Hamburg as a large, efficient universal port and thus to ensure Germany, independent of other countries, good and flexible access to the world market," said the SPD politician on Wednesday evening in a keynote speech, which marked the start for a series of events to mark the 100th anniversary of the traditional Übersee-Club.

In order to become independent of Russian gas imports as quickly as possible, the federal government and the city are currently working on "creating a mobile terminal in our port in the short term to feed LNG into the gas network in northern Germany," he said.

With the floating terminal, the liquefied natural gas (LNG) landed by ships is to be converted back into gaseous form.

The Senate intends to present the new port development plan this year.

The port is not only indispensable for Hamburg, "but with its handling of more than eight million standard containers and more than 120 million tons of sea freight as the only German seaport of this size is of the greatest national importance".

The gross added value associated with the port amounts to over 50 billion euros throughout Germany.

"More than 600,000 jobs in Germany are related to the Port of Hamburg, around 68,000 of them in Hamburg," said Tschentscher.

This leads to tax revenues of 2.6 billion euros nationwide, about half of which is in Hamburg.

"With a strategically clever port policy, we are securing the basis for added value, prosperity and employment in Hamburg and throughout Germany."

The port can help to advance the energy transition, climate and environmental protection, to secure added value, jobs and tax revenue, to ensure Germany's supply even in times of crisis and to anchor innovations and future technologies in Hamburg, said Tschentscher.

In view of the significantly lower CO2 emissions from ship transport compared to rail and truck, nobody who takes climate protection seriously should fight the port.

“In other words: If we want to achieve the Paris climate protection goals worldwide, we have to transport the goods as far as possible by large ships and rail.

For this we need large, efficient seaports with an optimal hinterland connection by rail," said the mayor.

The port railway is therefore a competitive advantage in Hamburg.

The aim is "to expand this advantage and to further strengthen the port railway through additional investments in the network and its performance".

However, a prerequisite for the further development of the port is its accessibility.

Therefore, the fairway must be kept free of sediment deposits.

"One goal of the new port policy is to finally set up sustainable sediment management and to end circular dredging, which is also harmful from an environmental point of view."

In order to gain an advantage over Rotterdam and Antwerp, port companies in Hamburg, Bremen and Wilhelmshaven would have to consider merging the terminal business.

He thinks that makes sense, said Tschentscher.

He also thinks that shipping companies might be able to invest in the container terminals if the conditions are right.

However, land in the port must always remain the property of the city.

Tschentscher praised the decision to secure the preservation of the Hapag-Lloyd shipping company, which was in trouble at the time, in 2012 through a stake in the city.

The commitment was also worthwhile financially in the form of dividend payments.

"This year alone, it's 850 million euros with which we can offset a large part of the financial burden from the corona crisis," said Tschentscher and announced: "The city will remain an anchor shareholder of Hapag-Lloyd AG."

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The development of the port is not about counting containers, but also about the effects on the economy and work, about efficient logistics, about the quality of port services, about climate protection and innovation, said Tschentscher.

"Our goal is not to become the largest port in Europe, our goal is to become the most modern, the most digital and the most sustainable port in the world." dpa