Hamburg: Growth in trade handled at Hamburg port is likely to slow slightly in the second half of 2007 but booming business with China and Russia will keep the expansion robust, port and commerce executives said.

Hamburg is Europe's second-biggest container port after Rotterdam and handles around 10 per cent of Germany's foreign trade.

The export sector is a major driver of Europe's biggest economy. Last year Germany held onto its position as the world's leading exporter of goods.

"We're still growing and still very optimistic," said Juergen Sorgenfrei, chairman of Port of Hamburg Marketing, an organisation backed by the city authorities and port operators which compiles statistics on the port and promotes it.

"We expect a little slowdown in the second half of this year," he added. "This is just the world economy. All expectations, if we look at different markets, are showing that they expect a small slowdown."

Sorgenfrei expected container cargo volumes, which account for the majority of Hamburg port's trade, to grow by about 12 per cent over the full year after 14.3 per cent in the first half.

"For 2008... maybe we will end up with something like an eight-nine per cent increase in containerised cargo," he added.

The chief of Hamburg's Chamber of Commerce also said the growth in the city's trade would slow a shade in the second half of this year but said it was enjoying brisk trade with China and its business outlook is positive.

"In the second half, there will be slightly less growth but it will stay at a high level," Hamburg Chamber of Commerce chief Karl-Joachim Dreyer said.

Vitality

"Overall, there is a lot of vitality in foreign trade," said Dreyer. "The US has perhaps weakened a little but China is in no way weakening. The east Asian area has not weakened."

Some 25 per cent of the containers handled at the city's port are shipments to and from China. The port plans to double its capacity by 2015 from the 2006 level, and still expects China to account for 25 per cent of trade with the enlarged capacity.

"We are very confident," Dreyer said of the trade outlook.

Sorgenfrei saw no sign of this month's financial market turbulence feeding through into weaker business at the port in the remainder of this year: "No, not for the coming six months. Maybe if you look a little further ahead," he said.

Morale

The market turmoil weighed down German business morale in August, a survey by the Ifo think tank showed last Tuesday.

Sorgenfrei's predictions of a slight slowdown in port business chimed with economists' expectations for foreign trade's contribution to German economic growth to slow later in 2007, and for stronger consumer spending to pick up the slack.

Sorgenfrei said China and Russia were the top two markets for goods handled at Hamburg port.

Hamburg is a major trans-shipment point, where big container ships that do not go into the Baltic Sea offload and pick up cargo that smaller 'feeder' vessels ferry to and from Russia.