PORT and business representatives from centres along the Kiel Canal and the Hamburg Port Authority have jointly called for the upgrading of the 98-kilometre waterway which links the North Sea at Brunsbuttel to the Baltic Sea.
In a panel discussion hosted by the Port of Hamburg marketing, the participants called for the construction without delay of the fifth lock chamber and the renovation of the two existing large lock chambers at Brunsbuettel. In the medium term, business in the port and industry regard the straightening out of the eastern stretch of the canal and its deepening by one metre as indispensable measures.
Chairman of the Federation of Schleswig-Holstein Ports, Frank Schnabel, for whom the Kiel Canal is more than just a transit waterway, declared: "If the reliability of the canal, actually the most heavily used canal in the world, cannot be guaranteed due to infrastructural deficiencies, then that will rapidly lead to a switching of transport flows. That will then affect innumerable jobs directly or indirectly attributable to the canal and the sea trades using it."
He warned: "The Kiel Canal is just as much a lifeline for industrial firms and businesses along the canal. We must at all costs prevent the catastrophe of a long-term closure of the Kiel Canal, since otherwise the national economy will suffer grave damage."
Kiel Canal Initiative chairman Jens Broder Knudsen said that after the replacement investments in the locks and the Levensauer elevated bridge, in the view of the Kiel Canal Initiative the growing sizes and drafts of ships require adjustment of the Eastern stretch of the canal very soon.
"This would allow greater feasible draft and hence higher transport capacity. Along with the adaptation and optimisation of the canal bends on the Eastern stretch, a deepening by one additional metre to a total of 12 metres is also vital. These measures would shorten passage times for shipping, eliminating waiting times."
Port of Hamburg marketing CEO, Axel Mattern, wound up the panel discussion by commenting that as the shortest, fastest and most environmentally-friendly sea link with the Baltic region, the Kiel Canal is of immense importance for the wider Hamburg metropolitan region.
"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."
PORTS
15 November 2013 - 00:19
Joint call for the upgrade and operational reliability of Kiel Canal Port
PORT and business representatives from centres along the Kiel Canal and the Hamburg Port Authority have jointly called for the upgrading of the 98-kilometre waterway which links the North Sea at Brunsbuttel to the Baltic Sea.
PORTS
15 November 2013 - 00:19
Joint call for the upgrade and operational reliability of Kiel Canal Port
This news 9118 hits received.
These news may also interest you