Asia services help port regain market share

After a somewhat subdued upward trend for the first three months of the year, the Port of Hamburg, Germany's largest port, is showing signs of significant growth once again according to first nine month figures. As a reult of this, Hamburger Hafen und Logistik AG (HHLA) has raised its targets for this year.

The 89.4 million tonnes of cargo handled in the first three quarters of 2010 represents an increase of eight per- cent over the same period the previous year.

On the import side, Port of Hamburg Marketing - the marketing organisation of the Port of Hamburg - recorded cargo-handling figures of 51.8 million tonnes, up 11.8 percent.

Exports via Hamburg also recorded a positive trend at 37.6 million tonnes, up 3.3 percent. General cargo, the dominant segment in Hamburg, showed marked growth of 8.6 percent, with a total of 60.2 million tonnes handled. The bulk cargo segment also contributed to the growth at 29.2 million tonnes, up 6.9 percent.

In September alone, some 744,000 TEUs were handled, corresponding to an increase of 25.1 percent and representing the best ever monthly container handling figures recorded since November 2008. The positive trend in container handling in Hamburg also reflects Germany's much improved overall economic situation.

In view of this dynamic growth over the crisis year 2009, the HHLA has revised its earlier forecast for the current business year, projecting growth in container volume to be over 11 percent. In the first nine months Hamburg handled 4.3 million TEUs. The HHLA based its growth forecast on the projection that world trade will grow slower in the final quarter compared to the past few months.

The Christmas seasonal buying which, usually, results in Germany's largest port getting massive volumes of consumer goods from around the world particularly in the last months of the year, had started some four to six weeks earlier, said Klaus-Dieter Peters, HHLA chief.

The HHLA has profited from new container lines entering the port and also from winning back those who had turned their backs on Hamburg.

During the crisis, the HHLA had reduced the costs for container shipments, and teamed up with rival Eurogate in providing feeder services. The feeder ships collected containers arriving with the large ships from Asia, and transported them further to destinations in the Black Sea region.

Since the countries of Eastern Europe have staged a much slower recovery than other regions after the crisis, Hamburg port was behind rivals Rotterdam and Antwerp at the start of the year. However, the HHLA recorded higher growth rates than the competitors in the container business and has been regaining its market shares.

Peters emphasised that further growth at Hamburg port would depend on further deepening of the Elbe River, originally scheduled to take place in 2011. The deepening is required to accommodate the large ships with 13,000 and more containers; such ships find it difficult to navigate to Hamburg because of the water level problems.

One reason for the growth in container handling is the resumption of the China and Asia services, which the shipping companies had temporarily suspended during the financial crisis.

In the first nine months of this year, container traffic to and from Asian regions grew by 13 percent compared with the same period last year, to a total of 3.5 million TEUs. Container trade to and from America amounted to 587,000 TEUs, up 13.9 percent; the Africa route recorded 150,000 TEUs, up 25.7 percent; and the European feeder and short-sea services, an important segment for Hamburg, totalled 1.6 million TEUs, up 3.7 percent.

"The cargo-handling figures for the first three quarters of 2010 indicate that the strongly performing container segment, in particular, recorded double-digit growth on almost every trade route. Bulk cargo handling figures over the first nine months benefited from a massive boost in iron ore imports: they almost doubled in volume compared with the same period of the previous year, to 6.7 million tonnes, an increase of 91.2 percent," said Claudia Roller, chief executive officer of Port of Hamburg Marketing.

For the year 2010 as a whole, Claudia Roller expects an increase in container trade of more than 11 percent up to nearly eight million TEUs in the Port of Hamburg. The total volume of seaborne cargo handled in the year 2010 as a whole is likely to confirm the positive trend of the first nine months, to reach more than 120 million tonnes, representing growth in a range between eight and nine percent.
(Source:www.cargonewsasia.com)