Sector development

Growth in global container throughput cooled in 2018. According to the most recent estimates by Drewry, global throughput climbed by 4.7 % last year. This is well below expectations, as throughput of 6.5 % for 2018 was still being forecast midway through the year.

The weakening of throughput growth was observed in almost all shipping regions, albeit to different extents. In Europe, growth momentum from the Western Mediterranean as well as Scandinavia and the Baltic was unable to offset the weaker trend in the regions of North-West Europe, the Eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea. There was even a noticeable year-on-year slowdown in growth in the world’s highest-throughput region, Asia. In China, the pace of throughput growth almost halved to 3.6 %, partly as a consequence of the trade conflict with the United States.

The trend among the major container ports of the North Range, as well as the largest ports of the western Baltic Sea, was mixed. In the Port of Hamburg, throughput volume of 8.7 million TEU in the reporting period was nearly on the same level as in the previous year (previous year: (8.8 million TEU). As a result, Hamburg continues to rank third among European container ports, despite the delays in dredging the river Elbe.

Europe’s largest container port, Rotterdam, handled 14.5 million TEU in 2018, 5.7 % more containers than in the previous year. With container throughput of 11.1 million TEU, year-on-year growth in Antwerp of 6.2 % was slower than in 2017. Overall, throughput at the German Bay ports remained more or less stable, while the Benelux ports experienced growth. Container throughput at the Polish and Russian Baltic Sea ports increased significantly once again.

According to the most recent estimates from September 2018, freight traffic across all modes in Germany will continue its upwards trend from the previous year. Transport volumes are expected to be up slightly by 2.0 % year-on-year, while the rise in traffic performance – transport volume multiplied by the distance travelled – is likely to be somewhat stronger than in 2017 at 2.8 %. Growth in road traffic will only be slightly weaker than in the previous year, at 2.3 %. Traffic performance is forecast to be exactly on a par with the previous year, at 3.4 %. Due to a marked decline in coal transport, the volume of rail transport increased more than in the previous year, albeit at a modest rate of 0.7 %. At 1.6 %, the growth in traffic performance will be up slightly on the previous year. Multi-modal traffic is expected to benefit from the robust performance in other classes of goods, with strong growth in volume and performance of 4.3 % and 3.8 %, respectively.