Hamburg copes with 6.3% more volume despite tardy bigger ship scheduling

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In the first six months of the year the port of Hamburg’s container traffic soared by 6.3%, compared with the same period last year, to 4.8m teu, with imports up by 7.4% to 2.5m teu and exports ahead by 6.3% at 2.3m teu.  Like Rotterdam the port has struggled with the unexpected surge in imports from Asia combined with larger ships that are arriving outside their berthing windows – on average 70 hours off schedule. However, the opening of the fourth tube of the Elbe Tunnel and good progress on other infrastructure work in the city port has begun to ease the congestion.  Now all that is needed is for ocean carriers to improve their schedule integrity.