THE Port of Hamburg, Europe's second largest container port after Rotterdam, reported a 5.2 per cent increase in first quarter volume to 2.2 million TEU, driven by improved trade with the Baltic region and North America.

This compensated for a five per cent decline in container traffic from Asia, mostly attributed to reductions in the cessation of some liner services since the beginning of the year.

"Downturns in the Asia trade are a momentary phenomenon caused by restructuring of various liner services. But we are expecting new east Asia container liner services in the Port of Hamburg in the course of the first half year," said Port of Hamburg Marketing CEO Claudia Roller.

The trend in container throughput with the Baltic area in the first quarter of 2012 was strong. Increases were also achieved in the Europe and America trades. Container traffic with the Baltic region achieved a hike of 19.6 per cent and reached 531,000 TEU.

In the first three months, the Americas trade amounted to 279,000 TEU, achieving growth of 33.3 per cent because of new and extended liner services from Canada via the US and on to South America.

Bulk cargo throughput in the first quarter of 2012 stood at 9.5 million tonnes, 4.8 per cent down from the previous year.

In the first quarter total cargo throughput at Hamburg port reached a volume of 32.6 million tonnes, an increase of 3.8 per cent over the same period last year. General cargo throughput achieved a 7.9 per cent growth to 23.1 million tonnes, primarily powered by the strong trend in exports of containerised general cargo.

"We are delighted that with a 5.2 per cent rise in container throughput in the first quarter. Hamburg is ahead of the 2.4 per cent average growth for the four major ports in the North Range," said Ms Roller, "The excellent result in this segment is what triggered Hamburg's overall growth in the first quarter of 2012. For the remainder of the year we are reckoning on a further increase in total throughput."

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