[ Improved market conditions-new concepts ]

Hamburg’s port economy is convinced that with the countries of
Europe growing closer together and Eastern Europe opening up, there
is every chance that the Elbe will regain the significance it enjoyed
prior to World War two. That is why Hamburg’s port economy is
battling to ensure that inland-waterway vessels continue to be exempt
from port dues on Hamburg(despite the precarious state of public
finances in Hamburg and Bonn), the Upper Elbe is developed into an
inland waterway that is fully navigable all the year round, and the
central and eastern German canal system is extended to allow inland
shipping to gain a larger share of the Port’s hinterland traffic.
“In the context of increasing bottlenecks in road traffic,” HHVW
Chairman Dr. Hans Ludwig Beth explains, “greater use has to be made
of the capacity available in inland shipping.” Thus, Hamburg’s
port economy supports inland development in the development of new
transport and logistics concepts.
The Elbe Container Line, a German-Czech shipping line operated by
Deutsche Binnenreederei(DBR) and Czechoslovakian Elbe Shipping
Co.(CSPL), was launched in 1995. This inland container line offers
weekly departures on the 700-km Elbe route between Hamburg and
Prague. On the 8-10 day trip the container service calls in at the
ports of Magdeburg, Aken, Riesa, Dresden, Decin, Usti and Melnik, in
1996 3,500 TEUs of cargo were carried by the new line. In the medium
term 10,000 TEUs would seem to be a realistic figure. A ro-ro liner
connection between Hamburg and the Czech Republic is currently at the
planning stage. DBR and CSPL with their various logistics and
transport services account for around a third of the Port of Hamburg
’s total inland-shipping traffic.
Despite the new service, it is still mainly bulk and conventional
general cargoes that are transported on the Elbe: petroleum products,
building materials, grain, fodder, agricultural produce, fertilizers,
ores, iron and steel, scrap metal, kaolin, all kinds of heavy goods,
investment goods and cocoa. About half of the Czech Republic’s
traffic is made up of oilcake and other animal feedstuffs. Potash
fertilizers, grain and scrap iron play an important role among the
cargoes coming downstream from eastern Germany while fuel and heating
oil are the main commodities carried upstream.
By the way, in 1995 58 inland-waterway firms were based in
Hamburg-most of them individual skippers or independent
barge-owners-with a total turnover of DM 235 million.