The Russian embargo and slowdown in the Chinese economy have hit cargo throughput at the Port of Hamburg. Containerised cargo traffic for the first nine months of the year was down 9.2 per cent on the year-earlier period at 6.7m TEUs.
Although bulk cargo handling grew by 8.7 per cent, this was not enough to offset the fall in container traffic and overall cargo throughput fell by 4.8 per cent to 104.6m tonnes.
At 323,000 TEUs, container throughput from Russia, the port’s third most important trading partner, was down 36 per cent on the year-earlier period. This was mainly due to a fall in transhipment traffic, the port said, adding that there were no signs of a recovery in the near future.
“We assume that container throughput with Russia is now stabilising and that perhaps the first signs of an upward trend will be apparent next year,” said Axel Mattern of Port of Hamburg Marketing.
The port said it was used to dealing with severe fluctuations in trade with Russia as a result of the worldwide economic and financial crisis and would survive this most recent drop.
