The upward trend in the Port of Hamburg’s seaborne cargo throughput was also maintained in the third quarter of 2011 with a total throughput of 99 million tons. Compared to the same period of the previous year, in the first nine months of 2011 altogether 9.4 million tons more seaborne cargo (up by 10.6 percent) were handled. In recent months Hamburg has succeeded in winning back market shares of the order of one percentage point lost during the worldwide economic and financial crisis to the West ports of Antwerp and Rotterdam lying further.
On the import side, Port of Hamburg Marketing, the Port of Hamburg’s marketing organization, put throughput at around 58 million tons (up by 11.6 percent). Exports via Hamburg at 41 million tons (up by 9.2 percent) also developed favorably. At 69 million tons, the general cargo throughput that predominates in Hamburg displayed super-strong growth of 14.7 per-cent. Totaling 30 million tons (up by 1.9 percent) throughput in the first nine months of the current year also contributed positively to total cargo handling in Germany’s largest universal port.
Since the second half of 2010 a continuous improvement has occurred in Container throughput in the Port of Hamburg, with evaluation of the first nine months of 2011 indicating renewed double digit growth with an advance of 15.3 percent. Altogether 6.8 million TEU were handled at the Port of Hamburg’s container terminals during the first nine months. The Port of Hamburg’s outstanding attractiveness was also reflected in the evenness of the development of container imports and exports. In the first three quarters of 2011, 3.5 million TEU (up by 15.6 percent) were handled in Hamburg on the import side, and 3.3 million TEU (up by 14.9 percent) on the export side. All trades involved in container traffic with Hamburg developed positively in the first nine months and achieved volume growth. European trades with 2 million TEU achieved a gain of 23.1 percent. Baltic trades with Scandinavia (690,000 TEU) and the countries of Eastern Europe, including Russia, (785,000 TEU) reported out-standing throughput figures representing growth of 13.8 percent and 44.0 percent, respectively. With 3.9 million TEU involving a gain of 10.6 percent, in the first nine months the Asia trade that is of special importance for the Port of Hamburg maintained its steady upward trend. Container trades from and to America achieved a total of 733,000 TEU (up by 24.8 percent). Thanks to additional liner service connections for the Port of Hamburg, container traffic with the USA performed extremely strongly, with growth reaching 65.4 percent. In the first three quarters of the year around 198,000 TEU were accordingly transported on this trade route, bringing the USA up from 13th to 7th place among the Port of Hamburg’s top trading partners for container traffic. Africa as a container trade produced 162,000 TEU (up by 7.5 percent) and Australia/Pacific with 29,000 TEU scored a gain of 3.3 percent.
Throughput of non-containerized general cargo reached 1.8 million tons in the months January to September 2011, remaining just below the comparable result in the previous year of 1.9 million tons. The downturn is primarily attributable to imports of general cargo of tropical fruits, which at 372,000 tons were down by 18.9 percent. On the import side, the strongest growth in conventional general cargo throughput occurred in motor vehicles (up by 39.6 per-cent), metals (up by 35.5 perc
