Hamburger Hafen und Logistik AG (HHLA), an operator of three container terminals at the Port of Hamburg, Germany, has reported that throughput has climbed by 11.3% to 5.2 million TEU for the first nine months of 2017.
HHLA reported in its Q3 results that the reorganization of shipping line services had contributed to a “particularly strong” volume increase in Hamburg, with a growth of 17.3% on the high-volume Asian routes.
Alongside China – the Port of Hamburg’s most important trading partner – heightened trade with Russia contributed towards a 17.9% increase in feeder traffic with the Baltic Sea ports.
Revenue in the Container segment rose by 9.9% to € 563.6 million (US$ 665.1 million), and 21.5% growth in the operating result (EBIT) once again outstripped the rise in volumes, taking it to €105.2 million ($124.1 million).
HHLA reported that group revenue had also increased by 8.3% year-on-year to € 942.8 million ($1.1 billion), EBIT increased by 22.3% to €155.2 million ($183.2 million).
Read a related paper by Gerald Hirt on how the HHLA successfully mastered megaship traffic using a unique terminal collaboration model, the Hamburg Vessel Coordination Center
Angela Titzrath, the Chairwoman of HHLA’s Executive Board, said: “HHLA is currently benefiting from the positive trend in both the global economy and world trade, but also from the targeted sales activities and in-depth discussions with our customers which took place in the spring of this year and by which we secured – and in some cases expanded – our market position.
“We believe that we will achieve the targets forecast for 2017.
“Although the results are very pleasing, we continue to operate in a challenging market environment.
“Uncertainty remains in the form of the volatile trend in international trade, which has prompted a structural slowdown in growth over recent years and in the conditions at the Port of Hamburg.
“We are still waiting for work to commence on the dredging of the river Elbe.”
