The harbour of Hamburg has seen a stabilization of volume in the first half of 2016, at 70.2 million tons in total. The transport per train to and from the largest harbour of Germany has increased severely. “We achieved the increase in volume (23.8 million tons) of the train transport in the first half of 2016, which is a growth of 3.9%. Hamburg has increased its position as the largest railway harbour in Europe,” says Axel Mattem of the Hamburg Harbour.
The harbour processed 4.5 million TEU containers (20ft). This is a small decrease compared to last year. The harbour was hit hard by the severe decrease in transport to Russia and China, but this has been processed and the decrease has stopped. Despite the sanctions on the trade with Russia, the harbour transported 216,000 TEU to Russia, which is an increase of 2.3%. The export to China stabilized as well, but with a decrease of 1% with regard to last year at 1.3 million TEU. The trade to India is satisfying, the volume increased with 9.9% to 128,000 TEU. The Indian subcontinent is number eight on the list of most important trade destinations of the port. Other destinations that showed positive results for container transport are Finland (+4.3%), US (+7.3%), UAE (+14%), and UK (+13.1%).
The decrease of 12% in the total container transit is caused by a loss of services to harbours in Poland and Sweden. These countries saw the direct routes increase. The transit to Scandinavia decreased by 5.6%, the amount of transports to Poland and the Baltic States decreased by 5.7%.
The amount of containers that left the port per train increased as well. In the first half of this year there was 1.2 million TEU transported by train to the hinterland. This is an increase of 2.1%.