The Port of Hamburg posted a container throughput growth of 10.7 percent in the first nine months, handling 5.9 million TEUs.

This reflects the resumption of the China and Asia services that the shipping companies had temporarily suspended during the financial markets and economic crisis, the port said in a statement.

Added to this are numerous new full-container and feeder services, like the FAL-5 service operated by the two shipping companies CMA CGM and Maersk Line, and the concentration in Hamburg of the Baltic Sea feeder services operated by the TEAM LINES shipping company, all of which resulted in a major increase in the volume of container handling in Hamburg.

"After a difficult first quarter, container handling at the Port of Hamburg emerged from the crisis over subsequent months," the statement said.

In the first nine months of this year, container traffic to and from Asian regions grew by 13 percent compared with the same period last year, to a total of 3.5 million TEU.

The total of 89.4 million tonnes of cargo handled in the first three quarters of 2010 was an increase of eight percent over the same period last year.

On the import side, Port of Hamburg Marketing - the marketing organisation of the Port of Hamburg -recorded cargo-handling figures of 51.8 million tons (+11.8 percent).


The bulk cargo segment also contributed to the growth in the total volume of cargo handled at Germany's biggest universal port with 29.2 million tons (+6.9 percent) for the first nine months of this year.