Hamburg Reports Modest Box Growth for 2016
HAMBURG has reported only modest growth in its container throughput figures for 2016, which rose 1% to 8.9m teu as business shifted further east, dampening an otherwise positive year for the German port.
Accoridng to MANA, with ports in the Baltic and beyond now offering access to direct liner services on the back of significant infrastructural investments, the need for transhipment from ports such as Hamburg is diminishing.
As a result, Hamburg has seen its share in Baltic and Scandinavian trade fall dramatically in recent years.
At a press conference in Hamburg on Wednesday, the Helgoland Bay facility said that trade with Poland, home to the rapidly expanding port of Gdansk, was down 9.7% in 2016, while container volumes heading to Sweden slumped by a further 10.6% against last year’s levels.
There was however positive development in trade with Russia, where, despite ongoing sanctions, container volumes climbed by 4.5% on the previous year.