(Yicai Global) Oct. 27 -- The German government has given its approval for Chinese maritime giant Cosco Shipping Group to take a stake in the company that runs the Port of Hamburg, the European country’s biggest.

Cosco Shipping Port will buy 25 percent of Container Terminal Tollerort, a subsidiary of Hamburger Hafen und Logistik, HHLA said in a statement released on its website yesterday.

CSPL announced in September last year that it planned to purchase 35 percent of CCT for EUR65 million (USD65.4 million). Thanks to the efforts of the German Chancellery, the deal has been approved but with a smaller stake, Wu Huiping, deputy director of the German Studies Center of Tongji University, told Yicai Global. 

“We appreciate that a solution has been found in objective and constructive talks with the Federal Government,” said Angela Titzrath, chairwoman of HHLA. “We will negotiate a corresponding adjustment of the agreement with CSPL in the near future.”

The deal will consolidate the position of Hamburg as the largest port for China-Europe trade. It handled 4.4 million twenty-foot equivalent units in the first half, 1.3 million of which arrived from or were headed to China, ranking first worldwide, followed by the US with 291,000 TEUs and Singapore with 218,000 TEUs, according to the latest statistics.

CTT operates one of HHLA’s three container terminals in the Port of Hamburg. The terminal has four berths and 14 overhead cranes and can accommodate ships with a carrying capacity of at least 20,000 TEUs. It also has five rail transport lines connecting inland Europe.

CSPL specializes in port operations. It was running 367 berths in 37 ports worldwide as of Sept. 30, according to the firm’s website. Some 220 were container berths, with a total annual handling capacity of 122 million TEUs.

Editors: Dou Shicong, Futura Costaglione