November 16 - The Port of Hamburg posted a 9.5 percent year-on-year drop in the throughput of non-containerised general cargo during the first nine months of the year at 1.2 million tonnes.
Non-containerised imports were down 2.2 percent in the reporting period to 419,000 tonnes, with the growth of project cargo, timber and fruit shipments failing to offset downturns in paper, metal and vehicles.
Meanwhile, exports of non-containerised goods fell 13 percent compared with the previous year at 776,000 tonnes, with growing timber, iron and steel cargoes failing to compensate for lower automobile exports.
Overall, the port posted a total seaborne cargo throughput of 104.9 million tonnes for the first nine months of the year - up 0.3 percent compared with the same period of 2015. Cargo volumes in third quarter of 2016 rose 2.7 percent year-on-year to 34.7 million tonnes.
Axel Mattern, joint ceo of Port of Hamburg Marketing, noted that cargo throughput at the German gateway has stabilised and is showing signs of increasing, with a "discernible" upwards trend in volumes.
