In recent years, the global shipping industry has been under tremendous pressure under the continuous impact of the economic crisis. Hamburg, the second largest port in Europe and the largest port in Germany, has not yet returned to its former prosperity, but at least it has a distinct advantage in the competition with the main ports in Nordic Europe, 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% over the same period last year. Among them, Hamburg Port's business to China grew by 1.6%. Ingo Egrove, co-CEO of Hamburg Port Marketing Association, believes that the growth of trade in goods with China is the main reason for the gradual revival of Hamburg Port business.

 

"Although container throughput at Hamburg Port increased only slightly last year, compared with the recession in 2015, we think this is a very good situation," Ingo said. We also hope that we can continue to maintain this growth trend, although not obvious. This concerns Hamburg's trading partners, such as China, our most important trading partner. China's economic growth can be said to directly affect the Hamburg port cargo situation.

 

He said that under the influence of the new normal of China's economy, Hamburg's maritime transport volume once fell into a trough. However, under the framework of the Chinese government's "one belt and one way" initiative, the transport advantages of Hamburg's hinterland are particularly obvious, and the potential of cooperation with China is huge. Ingo 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 China's developments," Ingo said. For example, the Chinese government has vigorously promoted the construction of Hungary-Seychelles 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 flights to China every week, the so-called land Silk Road, and we look forward to further cooperation with China in this regard.

 

In order to optimize the service for Chinese customers, Hamburg Port has launched Chinese webpages on its official website since the end of last year. Matias Schultz, head of Port Asia and Overseas Market Development, said: "On the one hand, we translated the web page into Chinese, on the other hand, we adjusted the content settings and put database queries in a prominent position. 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 cooperate.

 

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. The business volume of Hamburg to and from China's ports reached nearly 2.6 million standard boxes. At the same time, Hamburg also has Europe's largest port freight railway station, the hinterland of the port transport nearly half by rail. He said: "the Hamburg City government is very concerned about the development of China's" one belt and one road "project, and feels that it is a place where" one belt and one road "is on the Sea Silk Road and land silk road.

 

Theo Sommer, a publisher and expert on international relations in the German times, seems to have slowed down the growth of the two digit economy to 6.7% in China, making the growth of container traffic in Hamburg almost stagnant enough to prove that trade with China is crucial to Hamburg, so Hamburg will make every effort to strengthen its cooperation with China: "I firmly believe that" one belt and one road ". The initiative helps to further promote bilateral cooperation. But at the same time, I do not think that the rise of railway transport under this framework will gradually replace the position of maritime transport, after all, maritime transport enjoys the advantages of low price and large volume of transport, so both will flourish together. I hope that Hamburg Port will once again welcome a large number of containers from China.