Klemens Materi, Project Manager for Corporate Development and Strategy at Duisburger Hafen, said that the history of the port in Duisburg dates back to 1816, and the company itself was registered as a joint stock company in 1926. In 2001, the “duisport” trademark was approved, under which the company became known throughout the world. Ownership of the port is divided between North Rhine-Westphalia and the city of Duisburg.
The port’s geographical location in North Rhine-Westphalia provides access to a huge market with more than 300 million consumers and a purchasing power of over 600 billion euros within a radius of 150 kilometers. Good infrastructure, including highways, railways and the Rhine, makes the port a key logistics hub in Europe.
“The port’s business model includes an integrated system, providing a variety of logistics services to more than 100 international companies. Examples of such partners include Hewlett-Packard and Kühne + Nagel, which distribute their products through the port. For example, cosmetics from Shiseido are received and packaged in Duisburg, and the port also receives huge volumes of Red Bull, which are delivered around the world after transhipment at the port of Rotterdam. These are just a few examples of successful business partnerships and operations that make the port of Duisburg an important hub for global trade.
Operations at the port are carried out by the duisport agency, which operates more than 100 hectares of terminals, handling more than 100 million tons of cargo and over 4 million TEUs per year. The duisport infrastructure allows cargo to be delivered to more than 100 destinations throughout Europe and the Scandinavian countries of Great Britain using river-sea ships,” shared Klemens Materi.
The company is actively developing the Middle Corridor, especially the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars direction, where it invested in the construction of a railway container terminal. The Rail Port intermodal logistics terminal, which will be put into operation at the end of this year, will complement the port’s capabilities and will allow it to handle up to one and a half million tons of cargo per year.
In addition, duisport cooperates with the port of Trieste through its subsidiary Duisburg-Cervignano, offering weekly trains from Cervignano to Duisburg. This is only a small part of the port’s activities, which actually includes nine different locations, providing a key role in European logistics.