If in the last quarter of 2024 the trend stopped decrease in freight traffic handled by the port of Hamburg which had been in place consecutively for 12 quarters, however the general trend of volumes handled by the port of call German port system seems unstoppably negative from mid- 2014 when, first in the second and then in the third quarter, quarterly historical records were recorded and then closed the full year with a new annual all-time high of 145.7 million of tons, 33.9 million tons more than to those that were eventful last year.

The 111.8 million tons of cargo handled in the whole of 2024 they represent a decrease of -2.1% on the year previous. Decrease in traffic that has been partially contained by the slight growth of +0.8% in general goods amounted to 78.7 million tonnes, of which 77.5 million tonnes were tons of containerized goods (+0.8%) made with a container handling of 7.8 million TEUs (+0.9%), including 6.8 million full containers (+1.2%), and 1.3 million tons of miscellaneous goods (+8.7%).

In the dry bulk sector, where it has been traffic of approximately 24.0 million tonnes, the overall decline was -6.3% on 2023, while in that of liquid bulk cargo decreased by 14.2% with 9.1 million tons handled.

In the fourth quarter of 2024 alone, the German port handled globally 27.8 million tons compared to 27.7 million tons million in the corresponding period of the previous year. Growing container loads were 19.3 million tons (+4%) with about two million TEU containers handled (+8%) and the other miscellaneous goods with 396 thousand tons (+32%). Liquid bulk fell by -11% to 2.5 million tons and dry ones fell by -5% to 5.7 million tons.