The first six months of 2010 have brought about what has been described as 'remarkable growth' at the Port of Hamburg in Germany, with 58.6m tonnes of seafreight handled, an increase of 8.1 per cent year-on-year.
According to Port of Hamburg Marketing, imports performed particularly well through the first half, reaching 33.7m tonnes or growth of 12.3 per cent on the previous year. Exports also saw growth, up 2.9 per cent on 2009 to 24.9m tonnes.
General cargo handling increased by 5 per cent to 38.8m tonnes while bulk cargo grew 14.8 per cent to hit 19.7m tonnes, according to Port of Hamburg Marketing CEO Claudia Roller.
'The pleasing cargo handling figures confirm the clear upward trend in cargo throughput of the Port of Hamburg,' said Ms Roller. 'Also, container traffic that was hit especially hard in the year of crisis in 2009 has again seen an upward tendency and reached a volume of 3.7m TEU in the first half of the year, an increase of 4.3 per cent.
'In June, with an increase of 16.5 per cent compared with the previous month following up on pre-crisis amounts, we even registered the best container handling result since December 2008,' she added.
Provided that there is a positive global economic climate in the second half of the year, Ms Roller noted that the Port expects to handle total cargo volumes of 119m tonnes, an increase of 8 per cent, and in container terms around 7.7m TEU, up 9 per cent on 2009.
