Port of Hamburg, Germany’s largest universal port, handled 135.1 million tonnes of seaborne cargoes during 2018, falling 1% in comparison to 2017. Yet, the railborne seaport-hinterland transport accounted for an overall of 46.8 million tonnes, increasing by 2.7% and 2.44 million TEU, equal to 4.7%.
Specifically, up to 60.000 cargo trains with approximately 1.6 million freight cars were handled during 2018 on the Port Railway network alone.
This enabled the port accomplish its milestone as Europe’s leading rail port. Jens Meier, CEO of Hamburg Port Authority commented
The positive figures for the Port Railway are a success that we achieved together with our partners last year. We can be justly proud of this performance.
In addition, the port’s leading position is based mostly on the large number of liner services that link Hamburg with a majority of 1000 global seaports.
Port of Hamburg accepts four new liner services, amongst them serving ports on the US East Coast plus others in Mexico, Axel Mattern, Joint CEO of Port of Hamburg Marketing noted.
Transport by rail is also increasing in container transport with China. The latter remained Hamburg’s largest trading partner in 2018. One in three of all containers handled in the port are for, or from, China.
Moreover, Axel Mattern sees a possible development in linking logistically the countries in the Baltic region with the Silk Road.
He continued stating that the port of Hamburg will be the first European centre to provide direct sea and rail services to China. To this matter Michael Westhagemann, Minister of Economics & Transport, addressed that the work on upgrading the fairway have already began.
In addition, many are the shipping companies that announced that after the deepening and widening of the Elbe, they will be making Hamburg their first discharge and last loading port in Northern Europe for their container services.
Once the Elbe has been deepened, large containerships and bulk carriers will be able to bring around 18,000 tons more cargo to Hamburg, likewise being able to sail with increased quantities.
The port and its handling terminals are already clearing mega-carriers with slot capacities of over 21,000 TEU and, looking to the future, are preparing to clear arrivals and departures by even larger vessels.
The Port of Hamburg, which is also Germany’s largest integral industrial area, will harness technological progress to expand its existing knowhow in the logistics field, while keeping in view the aims of climate policy. The port and Northern Germany as a logistics region are positioning themselves as an attractive location with superb prospects for the future.
The Port of Hamburg provides more than 156.000 jobs in the Hamburg Metropolitan Region. The port is also a significant industrial location and, in generating added value of 21.8 billion euros, is also of immense importance for the entire German national economy.
