Port Hamburg News

The Nautical Terminal Coordination (NTC) has expanded its portfolio to include cruise ships, now providing support for Costa and AIDA vessels when they call at the Port of Hamburg. When it arrives in Hamburg for the first time on February 27, 2016, AIDAmar will be the first cruise ship to call in Hamburg under the supervision of NTC, working in cooperation with Carnival Maritime’s fleet operations center. The cruise ship business is booming in Hamburg, with 160 visits expected in 2016.

A Chinese container ship that is one of the world's largest has run aground on the river Elbe near Germany's largest port Hamburg but shipping to the harbour continues as normal, German marine police said on Thursday. It ran aground after suffering a rudder breakdown while approaching Hamburg on Wednesday night, port pilots said. An attempt with tugs to refloat the 399.6-metre-long ship at high tide at midday on Thursday failed, and another attempt will be made during high tide on Thursday night, a marine police spokeswoman said. She said ships heading to and from Hamburg were able to sail past the stationary CSCL Indian Ocean normally but some larger ones might have to slow down.

The operational parameters for the high-volume and heavy goods shipments into the Port of Hamburg, generating such significant added value, are in need of sustained improvement through efficient infrastructure and lean authorization procedures. Such is the call from the Hamburg Chamber of Commerce, der Unternehmensverband Hafen Hamburg (UVHH), Port of Hamburg Marketing (HHM) and der Verband Straßengüterverkehr und Logistik Hamburg (VSH). “Three out of four machines manufactured in Germany go for export, and it is therefore essential to secure the access to main traffic routes and overseas ports,” stated Fritz Horst Melsheimer, President of the Chamber of Commerce.

Following a slight downturn in 2010, volumes in container handling between the Port of Hamburg and Poland recovered notably in 2011. Feedership container traffic with Poland grew by 33.3 percent, to 238,000 TEU (20-feet standard containers), and with Eastern Europe as a whole by 38.7 percent to 1,07 million TEU. So it comes as no surprise that feeder connections between Hamburg and the Polish ports were further expanded during 2011. Altogether five new feeder services began operation between Hamburg and Baltic ports in 2011. The Polish ports of Gdańsk, Gdynia, Świnoujście and Szczecin are served from Hamburg by eleven feeder services with a total of 20 sailings per week. In addition, Hamburg fulfills an essential hub function for traffic with its East Europe hinterland.

Within the EU the Port of Hamburg is one of India’s most important commercial partners in seaborne foreign trade. In November the Hamburg Joint Representative Office in Mumbai was officially opened. This is designed to strengthen economic, but also cultural and academic links between the two countries. Supported by Port of Hamburg Marketing, the Hamburg Senate and the Hamburg Chamber of Commerce and already functioning since the beginning of this year, the Representative Office is regarded as the contact point for representatives of the worlds of politics, commerce and culture from Hamburg and India. Thanks to the exchange of information and various events…

Hit hard by the global financial and economic crisis in the year 2009, the Port of Hamburg reports total cargo-handling figures of 28.6 million tons for the first quarter of 2010, an increase of 4.6 per cent over the same period in the previous year. On the import side, Port of Hamburg Marketing – the marketing organisation of the Port of Hamburg – recorded cargo-handling figures of 16.7 million tons (+6.0 per cent). Exports via Hamburg also increased in comparison with the first quarter of 2009, with a total of 11.9 million tons (+2.7 per cent). General cargo handling, the dominant segment in Hamburg, returned to growth (1.1 per cent) with a total of 18.6 million tons.