The U.S. moved into second place among the port’s top container traffic trading partners with 121,000 TEUs.
The Port of Hamburg’s first-quarter total throughput increased by 6% to 34.6 million tons, the German port announced Monday.
General cargo throughput grew 5.4% to 23.9 million tons and bulk cargo throughput was up 7.5% to 10.7 million tons. Containerized cargo also climbed 6.4% to 2.3 million TEUs, which the port primarily attributed to “four liner services new to Hamburg and linking the Hanseatic Sea with ports in the USA, Canada and Mexico.”
U.S.-related container transport saw a nearly four-fold increase to 121,000 TEUs, which catapulted America into second place among Hamburg’s top container traffic trading partners, trailing China’s 679,000 TEUs. America was ranked 17th at the end of last year, a Port of Hamburg spokeperson told American Shipper by email on Wednesday.
“You can see that the four new liner services of THE Alliance brought growth in this trade,” the spokesperson wrote. “Before these new services started in Hamburg (at the) beginning of this year, they were concentrated in Bremerhaven. Shippers followed the change to Hamburg and we heard from the shipping lines that this change to Hamburg was very successful.”
The U.S. constituted the second strongest market in the general cargo segment German foreign trade with about 14.1 million tons, which was behind China’s 21 million tons, according to the port.
“The four new transatlantic services run by THE Alliance, plus renewed growth in bulk cargo handling, are putting the port on a growth path,” said Axel Mattern, joint CEO of Port of Hamburg Marketing, in a statement. “Hamburg has now become the hub for services with the USA, Mexico and Canada.”
The port’s feeder traffic and landside seaport-hinterland services grew 8% to 1.45 million TEUs. Of the total TEUs handled, 865,000 TEUs were transported by feedership to other European ports, which was a 3.8% increase.