Short-sea traffic increased 4%, driven by strong economic growth in the U.K., Rotterdam’s main roll-on, roll-off market.

The Port of Rotterdam Authority won back most of the Baltic traffic because of congestion in Hamburg coupled with carriers’ decisions to switch cargo to the Dutch port ahead of the imminent opening of two new container terminals.

In the first nine months of this year the Port of Hamburg handled 109.9 million tonnes of cargo, an increase of 5.7% compared to 103.9 million tons in January-September 2013.

The containers handling totaled a record level for the period of 7.4 million TEUs (+6.4%).

The significant increase in container traffic was generated primarily by double-digit growth in traffic with Asia, with an increase of + 12.8% (2.3 million TEUs with China alone), and Africa (+28.2%); in growth (+2.8%) also container traffic with the Baltic Sea region.

The overall growth of container traffic is more sustained than that of competing ports in Northern Europe, which recorded an average increase in container handling of + 4.0%, and allowed to Port of Hamburg to increase its market share from 26.1% to 26.7% percent.

According to forecasts of the Port Authority, the Port of Hamburg will close the entire 2014 with a record traffic of 144 million tons of goods, while the only container traffic could reach about 9.7 million TEUs and next to the record of 9.9 million TEUs established in 2007.

Source: Port of Rotterdam, Hamburg Port Authority