The Port of Hamburg is Europe’s second largest container port and Germany’s premier universal port. The multipurpose terminals in the Hamburg port have long-time experience and modern equipment to handle breakbulk or conventional and project cargo. Among the 140 million tons of cargo handled last year in the port, there were around three million tons of conventional cargo.

This includes bagged or palletized commodities, metals, fruit, paper and other forestry products, potash and other chemicals, heavy or oversized load – even complete plants, factories and industrial parts.

Hamburg’s eight multi-purpose terminals provide some 30 berths where breakbulk and general cargo can be handled, and the port also has a range of heavy lift facilities including mobile and floating cranes for use in all parts of the port. A number of these specialized operators for breakbulk and project cargo are exhibiting in Antwerp: BUSS Ports, EUROGATE Container Terminal Hamburg GmbH, Paul Grimm GmbH & Co. KG, RHENUS MIDGARD GmbH & Co. KG, Carl Tiedemann (GmbH & Co.) KG and WALLMANN & Co. (GmbH & Co.).

From ro/ro, con/ro facilities to special terminals for fruit handling, Germany’s largest seaport offers every cargo related service and diverse expertise including comprehensive warehousing, packing services, all kind of transportation from and to the seaport hinterland, storage, logistics and distribution services.

Even if Hamburg as a powerful industrial and trading centre located in the Elbe metropolitan region itself generates at least one-third of seaborne imports and exports, the bulk of cargoes handled in the port’s seaborne foreign trade are sent inland by rail, truck or barge service. The volume of handled cargo in the port climbed up to 140 million tons in 2007. In the same year the container terminals in the port handled nearly 10 million teu.

TAILORMADE PRODUCT SERVICES
Hamburg is worldwide the biggest import and export place for green coffee, and Germany’s biggest import place for commodities as tea, cocoa and others. About 1.2 million tons of green coffee, 252,000 tons of cocoa, more than 440,000 tons of tea and spices are handled every year by Hamburg based port companies. Most of Hamburg’s warehouse operators are registered with the London International Futures Exchange (LIFFE) and with the New York Board Trade (NYBOT) as proved warehouse keepers.

The International Cocoa Trading Organization (ICCO) uses Hamburg as a center to store its buffer stocks. Other warehouse keepers in Hamburg are registered with the London Metal Exchange (LME). Most of these specialized warehouse operators offer services as cleaning, customs clearance, processing, sorting and delivery to final destination or to production.

EXPERTS OFFER EXPORT PACKING SERVICES
All Hamburg based seaport packing companies offer excellent facilities for intermediate storage, professional transportation and all kind of packing services, data transfer through EDI, ISO certification and membership with other German packing standard guidelines and associations.