Feeder traffic from Hamburg to Poland increases 16.9pc to 133,000 TEU

POLAND has become Hamburg's eighth largest trading partner after posting a year-on-year first half increase of 16.9pc to 133,000 TEU, reports the Baltic Transport Journal of Gydnia.

At the same time, the Port of Hamburg handled 65.9 million tonnes of cargo, up 2.7 per cent year on year with imports rising 0.1 per cent to 37.5 million tonnes while exports increased 6.4 per cent to 28.4 million tonnes.

The overall container traffic at Hamburg increased 1.9 per cent to 4.4 million TEU though results are still 12 per cent below the high water mark achieved in the first half of 2008, the last pre-crisis half-year.

Although the container traffic rose, Port of Hamburg marked a decrease on the Asia trade lanes - by 6.5 per cent with north Asia (1.63 million TEU), by 6.2 per cent with south Asia (400,000 TEU) and by three per cent with other regions of Asia, totalling 380,000 TEU. Overall feeder traffic went up 9.5 per cent to 1.1 million TEU, the report said.

Despite a 7.6 per cent drop, China, including Hong Kong, is still the main Hamburg trading partner with a 30 per cent share of all cargo. The second place goes to Russia with an eight per cent of share, up 14.7 per cent in the first half, followed by Singapore, which took up six per cent of volume, but fell 7.4 per cent in growth and the US, which accounted for 4.5 per cent of total volume, but grew 81.1 per cent.