Hamburg's gateway to the world

...to sinking revenues a year later. The port logged a cargo volume of only 6.6 million standard 20-foot containers in 2015 - a drop of 12.3 percent. That's pushed Hamburg behind the ports of Rotterdam and Antwerp in terms of container handling. The German port's struggles have mostly been brought on by slowing business with China and Russia.

Axel Mattern, Port of Hamburg Marketing CEO, isn't optimistic about business this year: "The overall number of containers moved isn't going to rise," he predicted as early as February. The port's management itself is forecasting slight to flat growth. That gives it little room to maneuver as it competes with the ports of Rotterdam (photo) and Antwerp, number one and two in Europe respectively.

Grain, coal, oil. Tranport revenue from these goods, which aren't conveyed in containers, rose by 5.8 percent. But that did little to help the Hamburg port's sinking bottom line.

More than 153,000 people work directly or indirectly in the goods transport sector in Hamburg. But it isn't immediately obvious just how big of an employer the port is - much of the operations involved in moving tens of thousands of containers daily are automated.

...dock annually at the Hamburg port. Cruise ships, ships carrying general and bulk cargo, tanker vessels, refrigerator ships, car transporters, tugboats, and museum boats. But container ships dominate the harbor - 70 percent of all general cargo worldwide is transported in containers.

In January, one of the world's largest container ships paid a visit to the Hamburg port. The CSCL GLOBE from China Shipping has room for 19,100 standard containers. But the giant ship could only dock at Hamburg's port half-filled. The Elbe river's waterway would have been too shallow for the ship if it were filled to capacity.

The Elbe river has to be deepened, to allow giant ships to cross the 100 kilometers (62 miles) between the port and the North Sea. But environmental activists are firmly opposed to the measure, fearing that fresh water sources for farmers would be threatened in the process.

Whether gigantic container vessels are here to stay remains to be seen. Ships have grown bigger in the last years and costs have been going down per container. But because global trade has slowed down, many of the big ships are no longer sailing at full container capacity. Some shipping companies have stopped buying extra large cargo vessels.

German ports are part of an elaborate logistics system. After arriving at the port, goods have to be further transported via trains, trucks, or barges. The quality of the hinterland's network is a key factor for a port's competitiveness.

Around 12 percent of Germany's train-transported cargo is delivered from or to Hamburg's port. And container traffic via inland vessels has grown by 27.5 percent too. Hamburg is now the second-biggest inland port in Germany, overtaking Cologne.