Claudia Roller, Chief Executive Officer of Hafen Port of Hamburg Marketing, today presented 2010 throughput figures at the Annual Port of Hamburg press conference. “On both general and bulk cargoes, we are delighted at the gratifying result on throughput. With 121 million tons of seaborne cargoes handled, in 2010 the total for the Port of Hamburg was around 11 million tons up on 2009,” explained Roller. “In Hamburg too, in 2009 the worldwide economic and financial crisis led to a steep downturn in seaborne cargo throughput. In 2010 we are not yet again up to the volumes handled that we should like to have. Despite the satisfactory process of catching up in the course of the second half of 2010, we did not quite reach the previous year’s level,” said Claudia Roller. “The available national economic data cause us to reckon on being able to resume the record figures of 2008 again during the first half of 2012,” she added. For 2011 this expert on the port expects that the revival of foreign trade in Eastern Europe and Russia combined with further growth in German foreign trade will lead to a positive development in seaborne cargo throughput for the universal port of Hamburg. In addition, the People’s Republic of China, the Port of Hamburg’s leading foreign trade partner in the container trades, has since 2010 again ensured growing cargo flows transported by sea. In 2010 the Port of Hamburg as a virtual hub for the Asia and China trade routes with Northern Europe and the Baltic states was already able to profit from this positive trend and can reckon on overall growth of very nearly 10 percent for 2011,” forecast Roller. Against this background Christoph Ahlhaus, First Mayor, stated: “This success was the work of many, representative of whom I should especially like to single out Port of Hamburg Marketing for its successful activities. That our city’s economic performance – its gross domestic product – should have reached its pre-crisis level is a great achievement envied by many. We have every reason to approach the challenges that lie ahead of us with optimism.”
Economists and research institutes are also forecasting growth in world trade for 2011. The IMF and OECD are assuming that world trade will grow by between 7 and 8 percent in 2011. Given largely undisrupted expansion of the world economy, a continuation of the upward trend in the German economy may be anticipated, with growth rates of 2.0 and 1.5 percent in 2011 and 2012, respectively. “The efforts made to attract more ship traffic back to Hamburg have paid off. Backed by all players in the port, the transhipment incentive system met with very good acceptance and was in part utilized to the maximum limit. This has contributed to the post-crisis return of the feeder services to Hamburg,” said Jens Meier, Managing Director of Hamburg Port Authority.
An Overview of the Port of Hamburg’s satisfactory year in 2010
On the import side the Port of Hamburg’s marketing organization, Port of Hamburg Marketing, announced throughput of 70.4 million tons (+ 13.2 percent). Exports via Hamburg at 50.8 million tons (+ 5.4 percent) also developed positively in comparison to the previous year. Dominating the picture in Hamburg, at 80.9 million tons general cargo throughput achi
