Expand Your Shipping Ports, Germany!

North German harbors, industry and delivery companies have asked for exactly what they called “a sustained upgrading and operational reliability for the Kiel Canal.”

Throughout a press panel discussion in Hamburg hosted by Port of Hamburg Marketing, port and company reps from centers along the Kiel Canal and the Hamburg Harbor Authority jointly asked for the reconstruction without delay of the 5th lock chamber and the remodeling of the two existing big lock chambers at Brunsbüttel. In the moderate term, company in the harbor and market relate to the straightening of the Eastern stretch of the canal and its deepening by one meter as fundamental steps.

Chaired by Harbor of Hamburg Advertising and marketing CEO Axel Mattern, the panel was concerned with the demands on a dependable and reliable canal facility, and the economic repercussions of its limited use and availability.

Jens Broder Knudsen, Chairman of Kiel Canal Initiative, Jens Meier, Chairman of the Exec Board of Hamburg Port Authority, Frank Schnabel, Chairman of the Federation of Schleswig-Holstein Ports, and Rainer Keiemburg, Handling Director of TOTAL Bitumen Deutschland, took part.

For Mr. Broder Knudsen, it is clear that for handling their expanding flows of goods, not merely ports on the canal, yet others in Northern Germany and our neighboring countries, depend upon having an operational Kiel Canal that is accessible devoid of obstacles.

Mr. Knudsen explained that with the assent of all 16 government states of Germany, the Bodewig Commission had actually worked out some impressive probabilities for funding facilities. Through unique funding and aviator projects, with a wide political agreement a basis had been protected for lasting refinancing of infrastructure funding as a matter of top priority. In Mr. Knudsen’s view, this will substantially streamline the execution of future facilities procedures.

“The present debate about a ‘car toll on foreigners’ should not be allowed to further prevent the politically desired topping up of additional funds in the budget,” he said. “The Kiel Canal is the lifeline that connects German ports on the North Sea with the Baltic. The funding from the special fund to be created for the essential and overdue upgrading works on the Kiel Canal should serve to secure this advantage in routing vis-à-vis the competing ports in the Netherlands and Belgium,” declared Mr. Knudsen.

In spite of several gaps and restrictions in operation of the canal, in the first fifty percent of 2013 a total of 15,940 boats transited the Kiel Canal, transporting 48.8 million lots of freight. For Frank Schnabel, the availability of the harbors lying directly on the Kiel Canal in Brunsbüttel, Hochdonn, Hohenhörn, Kreishafen Rendsburg plus Rendsburg Harbor, the recently developed hefty payload harbor, Kiel’s Nordhafen and the Kiel-Holtenau inland waterway harbor, have to be assured in the lasting.

For a firm like TOTAL Asphalt Deutschland, which could point to a century of excellence and with its items is likewise closely associated with infrastructural development, in Keiemburg’s sight a functioning Kiel Canal is additionally a decisive consider establishing whether Brunsbüttel’s development as an industrial base gets to a dead-end or remains on a development course.

After the substitute investments in the locks and the Levensauer elevated bridge, in the view of the Kiel Canal Campaign the expanding sizes and drafts of ships need modification of the Eastern stretch of the canal soon.

Mr. Meier stated the Kiel Canal represents “an essential topographical advantage” for the Port of Hamburg and various other German harbors on North Sea. From Hamburg to Gdansk, for example the course benefit making use of the Kiel Canal is 437 nautical miles, as compared to the route around Denmark that by means of Skagen totals 874 nautical miles.

Harbor of Hamburg Advertising and marketing CEO Axel Mattern wound up the panel discussion by commenting that as the shortest, fastest and most eco friendly sea relate to the Baltic area, the Kiel Canal is of astounding relevance for the bigger Hamburg city region.

“The present debate about a ‘car toll on foreigners’ should not be allowed to further prevent the politically desired topping up of additional funds in the budget,” he said. “The Kiel Canal is the lifeline that connects German ports on the North Sea with the Baltic. The funding from the special fund to be created for the essential and overdue upgrading works on the Kiel Canal should serve to secure this advantage in routing vis-à-vis the competing ports in the Netherlands and Belgium,” proclaimed Mr. Knudsen.

“In combination with the Elbe and the Port of Hamburg, the Kiel Canal is a traffic system. The preservation and upgrading of the canal as part of Germany’s transport infrastructure is a national obligation and utterly essential for the preservation of the competitiveness of our economy and our ports. After the neglect of infrastructure over recent decades, we expect absolutely clear signals from the incoming new federal government indicating an assured future for the Kiel Canal and the related trade industry and ports,” Mr. Mattern concluded.

Port of Wismar, Germany
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