Bruce Barnard | Aug 03, 2011 10:17AM EDT
The German twin ports of Bremen-Bremerhaven boosted first half container traffic by 25 percent from a year ago, outpacing growth of their North European rivals.
Container traffic, which is mostly concentrated in Bremerhaven, rose to 3 million 20-foot equivalent units from 2.4 million TEUs in the first six months of 2010, consolidating the ports’ position as Germany’s second largest box hub after Hamburg.
Total throughput grew 16.5 percent to 40 million metric tons from 34.4 million tons a year ago.
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Trade Forecast: Port Tracker Forecast Rising North Europe Trade
Bremerhaven, the larger of the two ports, increased auto traffic by over 35 percent to a little less than 968,000 units, driven by strong growth in German exports to Asia and the U.S., which more than outweighed lower imports.
Bremerhaven had to hire 270 temporary workers to handle a spike in traffic in July when 45 car carriers a week called at its auto terminal compared with a normal weekly average of 25 vessels.
-- Contact Bruce Barnard at brucebarnard47@hotmail.com.
