The resumption of services temporarily suspended by shipping companies during the economic downturn has had a positive effect on the port of Hamburg's container handling figures.

Maersk Line and CMA CGM's FAL-5 service, the concentration in Hamburg of Baltic Sea feeder services operated by Team Lines and a number of other new full-container and feeder services have boosted figures.

"The cargo-handling figures for the first three quarters of 2010 indicate that the strongly performing container segment recorded double-digit growth on almost every trade route.," said Claudia Roller, CEO of Port of Hamburg Marketing.

The port handled 5.9 million teu, year on year, representing growth of 10.7%, in the first nine months.

In September, some 744,000teu was handled, an increase of 25.1% year on year, and the best monthly container handling figures recorded since November 2008.

In the first nine months of this year, container traffic to and from Asia increased 13% to 3.5 million teu, compared with the same period last year.

Container trade to and from the US totalled 587,000teu, up 13.9%; Africa routes recorded 150,000teu, up 25.7%; and European feeder and shortsea services totalled 1.6 million teu, up 3.7%.

For the full year, Roller expected an increase in container trade of more than 11% up to nearly 8 million teu.