HHLA achieves operating result of 157 million euros

"Despite extremely difficult conditions, we generated solid sales and a respectable operating result in the 2015 financial year. However, the sales and earnings performance also shows that we cannot decouple ourselves from the overall global economic and geopolitical situation. In addition to the significantly more restrained economic growth in China, we continue to feel the effects of the crises in Russia and Ukraine, where we operate our Container Terminal Odessa. The resulting decline in container throughput is offset by pleasing growth in container transport by our rail companies. Even if the additional volumes transported were not able to fully compensate for the decline in container throughput, it is once again clear that the strategic expansion of our rail activities was the right move and is now making a significant contribution to the company's economic stability," says Klaus-Dieter Peters, Chairman of HHLA's Executive Board.

Container throughput at the three container terminals in Hamburg fell by 12.6% compared to the previous year, reaching 6.3 million standard containers (TEU). By contrast, container throughput at the Container Terminal Odessa in Ukraine was only just below the previous year's figure at 0.3 million TEU. Overall, container throughput fell by 12.3% to around 6.6 million TEU (previous year: 7.5 million TEU). The performance of HHLA's rail companies was much more pleasing. Compared to the strong previous year, they once again increased their European seaport hinterland transportation by more than 5 percent to 1.0 million TEU. By contrast, road transportation fell by just under 5 percent, partly due to the difficult traffic conditions in the greater Hamburg area. Overall, container transport by HHLA's intermodal companies increased by 2.7 percent to 1.3 million TEU.