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Box volume at Port of Hamburg down 9pc with weak trade from China and Russia

CONTAINER throughput at the Port of Hamburg fell by 9.2 per cent to 6.7 million TEU in the first nine months of the year compared to the same period last year due to the weakness in Chinese foreign trade and the steep downturn in trade with Russia. Throughput with China fell by 14.9 per cent to 1.9 million TEU in the nine-month period.

"In the months of August and September, the jump in volume otherwise caused by supplies for the Christmas trade almost completely failed to materialize," the port said in a statement.

"Since China is our strongest trading partner in container traffic, and large quantities of containers are transshipped via Hamburg for transport into the Baltic region, this downturn is painful for the Port of Hamburg," said executive board member of Port of Hamburg Marketing (HHM), Axel Mattern.

In the first nine months of the year container traffic with Russia, the German port's third largest partner in box traffic, was down by 36 per cent to 323,000 TEU.

"Along with a weak rouble, the low oil price and the generally continuing recession in Russia were the main causes of the fall in container throughput," the port said.

Seaborne cargo throughput in Hamburg - Germany's largest universal port - was 4.8 per cent at 104.6 million tonnes in the first nine months of the year compared to last year.

Even if bulk cargo handling in the first three quarters totalled 34.3 million tonnes and was therefore once again substantially higher, being up 8.7 per cent, this could not fully offset the decline in general cargo throughput.

The Port of Hamburg said that for the end of the year, total throughput of 138 million tonnes (down by 5 per cent) may be expected, with container throughput not quite reaching 9 million TEU, compared to 9.4 million TEU for the whole of 2014.