Hamburg, 3 December 2010 - The port of Busan, Republic of Korea, is the port of Hamburg's new sister port. Ki-tae Roh, President of the Busan Port Authority (BPA), and Jens Meier, Managing Director of the Hamburg Port Authority (HPA), signed the sister-port agreement today. Both ports seek to intensify relations in the future and cooperate more closely. It is the port of Hamburg's seventh sister-port relationship.

"We are delighted about this partnership. The ports of Busan and Hamburg have a lot in common. On topics like future port development and international trends, for example, we can learn so much from each other," said Meier.

"The Ports of Hamburg and Busan, the gateways to Germany and Korea respectively, have played major roles in promoting bilateral trade between the two countries. Celebrating today's signing ceremony, I am sure that the two No.1 ports in both nations will further strengthen mutual cooperation, and contribute to the stronger economic ties between the two countries," so Ki-tae Roh.

Important Maritime Trading Partner
Electric articles, machines and equipment in particular are shipped from the South Korean port to Hamburg. From Germany, machines as well as plastics and electronic products are exported to Busan via the port of Hamburg. In 2009, 233,000 standard containers (TEU, twenty-foot equivalent unit) crossed the seas between Hamburg and South Korea. This figure rose by around 15 per cent in the first three quarters of 2010. Nine container shipping services running between South Korea and North Europe call the port of Hamburg. The two large South Korean shipping companies, Hanjin Shipping and Hyundai Merchant Marine, run regular container shipping services between both ports.

About the port of Busan
Busan is the world's fifth largest container port. In 2008, 13.5 million TEU were moved through the port. In 2009, that figure still stood at roughly twelve million TEU. Its location in the south of the country, on the major shipping routes between Europe and East Asia as well as on the trans-pacific route between Asia and the USA, is excellent. At over 40 percent, the transhipment share is very high. The port is divided into two sections - a new port and an old port. Like the Hamburg Port Authority, the Busan Port Authority is a public institution that owns and leases out the port land.

Sister-Port Relationships
The port of Hamburg has so far entered into seven sister-port agreements. The sister-port agreement with the port of Yokohama was concluded in 1992. Over the next years, similar accords with the ports of Kaohsiung, Shanghai, Montevideo, Dar es Salaam and Shenzhen were signed. The aim of the agreements is to exchange expert knowledge on, for instance, infrastructure projects as well as market-relevant trends and developments on a regular basis.