In recent years, the global shipping industry is under great pressure under the continuous influence of the economic crisis. Hamburg, as the second largest port in Europe and the largest port in Germany, has not recovered to its former prosperity, but it has obvious advantages in competition with the main ports in northern Europe at least, and even achieved recovery growth last year.
In 2016, the cargo throughput of Hamburg Port was 138.2 million tons, a slight increase of 0.3% year on year. Among them, the business volume of Hamburg Port to China increased by 1.6%. INGO eglov, CO CEO of Hamburg Port Marketing Association, believes that the growth of goods trade with China is the main reason for the gradual recovery of Hamburg Port business.
"Although the container throughput of Hamburg Port only increased by a small margin last year, we think it is a very good situation compared with the recession in 2015," INGO said. We also hope that we can continue to maintain this trend of growth, though not obvious. This is related to the trading countries of Hamburg Port, such as China, our most important trading partner. China's economic growth can be said to have a direct impact on the freight situation of Hamburg Port. "
China's China's one belt, one road initiative, has been particularly vulnerable to the new normal situation of the Chinese economy, but the potential of the port's hinterland is particularly strong, with great potential in the Chinese side. Inger said that Hamburg Port has offices in Shanghai, Shenzhen, Guangzhou and other ports, and attaches great importance to maintaining close contact with the staff of these offices.
"We are very concerned about the developments in China," inger said. For example, the Chinese government vigorously promotes the construction of the Hungarian Sierra Leone international railway line connecting Budapest and Belgrade, while Hamburg is also building a container hub port in Budapest, so there is a lot of room for cooperation between the two sides. At the same time, Hamburg has 12 trains a week to China, the so-called land silk road. We also look forward to further cooperation with China in this regard. "
In order to optimize the service for Chinese customers, Hamburg Port launched a Chinese Web page on its official website at the end of last year. "On the one hand, we have translated the web page into Chinese, on the other hand, we have adjusted the content settings and put the database query in a prominent position," said Matthias Schultz, head of port Asia and overseas market development department. For example, Chinese companies can narrow their search scope by choosing qualifiers. All the information in this process is presented in Chinese. The advantage is that customers from China can more easily find the services they need and the corresponding local enterprises, and then carry out cooperation. "
Liu Guosheng, chairman of the German Chinese Exchange Association, told reporters that in 2016, China continued to maintain its position as the largest trading partner of Hamburg Port, and Hamburg's business volume to and from Chinese ports reached nearly 2.6 million TEUs. At the same time, Hamburg also has the largest port freight railway station in Europe, and nearly half of the traffic in the hinterland of the port is realized by railway transportation. China municipal government has one belt, one road, one belt, one road, one silk road and one silk road.
In the opinion of Theo sommer, publisher of German "time weekly" and expert on international relations, the double-digit growth rate of China's economic development slowed down to 6.7%, which made the growth of container transport volume of Hamburg Port almost stagnate. It is enough to prove that trade with China is crucial for Hamburg, so Hamburg will make every effort to strengthen cooperation with China: "I firmly believe, The "one belt, one road" initiative will help further promote bilateral cooperation. But at the same time, I don't think that the railway transportation under this framework will gradually take the place of sea transportation. After all, sea transportation enjoys the advantages of low price and large transportation volume, so the two will prosper together. I hope Hamburg Port will welcome a large number of containers from China again. "