The Hamburg shipping company Hapag-Lloyd wants to cooperate with its rival Maersk. That could bring more cargo to the German container ports – just not Hamburg.
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A container ship from the Maersk shipping company (left) next to a Hapag-Lloyd freighter in the port of Hamburg © Christian Charisius/dpa
The shipping company Hapag-Lloyd from Hamburg and its competitor Maersk from Copenhagen have been negotiating a new cooperation for more than four months. Everything was top secret and almost nothing leaked out. The big bang came on Wednesday morning: First, the shipping company bosses Rolf Habben Jansen and Vincent Clerc informed the most important partners and politicians, including Hamburg’s First Mayor Peter Tschentscher and Finance Senator Andreas Dressel (both SPD). They then announced a pact that will change the world of container transport at sea and is likely to have far-reaching consequences for German ports.