As of: February 27, 2024, 4:37 p.m
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The port in the fog: The port of Hamburg is unique in Germany due to its size.
© Georg Wendt/dpa
The Port of Hamburg was able to maintain its third place last year behind Rotterdam and Antwerp.
However, fewer goods were handled again.
Berlin - The port of Hamburg is feeling the effects of the global political and economic crises.
Last year, Germany's largest seaport suffered a decline in container throughput of around seven percent to 7.7 million standard containers (TEU), as the Port of Hamburg Marketing (HHM) business association announced on Tuesday.
“The decline is primarily due to the difficult geopolitical and economic situation that all market participants are confronted with,” explained HHM board member Axel Mattern.
He did not dare to make a specific forecast for 2024, but said: “We will be happy if we can keep what we have.”
Less throughput in the port of Hamburg
A good 114 million tons of sea freight were handled through the port of the Hanseatic city last year.
That is a minus of 4.7 percent.
At the turn of the year, the business association was able to see a glimmer of hope in the figures for container throughput, which were given more attention in the industry: the decline in the first half of 2023 was still 11.7 percent and thus above the annual value.
There was also a smaller decline in the first two months of 2024 than in 2023. In addition, the decline in container cargo in 2023 was lower than that of its northern European rivals, meaning that the Port of Hamburg was able to maintain its market share here.
By 2023, container throughput in the port of Hamburg had already fallen by around five percent.
The business association pointed out numerous factors that influenced the business, but which the port itself had no influence on.
The declining development of the German economy and the subdued consumer climate would also have had a negative impact in 2023.
But internationally there is still no all-clear.
Only on Monday, the World Trade Organization (WTO) declared that global trade in goods could develop even weaker this year than previously predicted.
Meanwhile, the head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Kristalina Georgieva, called for more international cooperation and more trust.
Last year, around 3,000 measures were taken that restricted international trade.
This is almost three times as much as in 2019.
China's largest trading partner
According to HHM, the Port of Hamburg's largest trading partner is still China, including Hong Kong.
However, container traffic here fell slightly compared to the previous year to just under 2.2 million TEU.
On the other hand, there was an increase of eight percent to 653,000 TEU in container traffic with the USA, the second largest trading partner.
Singapore, Poland and Sweden follow in third to fifth place.
India moved up to eighth place.
According to HHM, the crisis in the Red Sea is causing delays in the port of Hamburg, but not disrupting operations.
A few fewer ships arrived in January and then followed in February.
The terminals showed sufficient flexibility to process these problems without any problems.
There are no traffic bottlenecks.
Situations like the blockade of the Suez Canal by the ship “Evergiven” are currently a long way away.
Because of repeated attacks by Yemen's Houthi rebels on cargo ships, many shipping companies are avoiding the Red Sea and the Suez Canal.
Instead, the ships take the much longer route around the Cape of Good Hope at the southern tip of Africa.
According to earlier information from the business association, the Hamburg terminal operators HHLA and Eurogate had already prepared for the delays.
(Reuters, lf)
With material from dpa