Landlocked Switzerland becomes world’s largest container ship nation
Switzerland now the largest container shipping nation in the world
Keystone-SDA
Select your language
Generated with artificial intelligence.
Listening: Landlocked Switzerland becomes world’s largest container ship nation
Germany used to be the world’s largest container shipping nation. But that is now a thing of the past. The title is now held by a country that doesn’t even have access to the sea.
This content was published on
2 minutes
Keystone-SDA
Deutsch
de
Schweiz jetzt grösste Containerschiff-Nation der Welt
Original
Switzerland – a country without its own sea access – has risen to become the largest container ship nation in the world. The previous global fleet leader, Germany, has even fallen back to third place, as the President of the Association of German Shipowners (VDR), Gaby Bornheim, said in Hamburg. China follows Switzerland in second place.
The fact that the Alpine country is now the leader in container shipping is due to a single company: the world’s largest shipping company, Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC), based in Geneva. In the past, it has not only made a name for itself by acquiring a stake in the Hamburg port logistics company HHLA, but most recently also as a buyer of German container ships. “They have taken on a lot of tonnage,” said Bornheim.
More
More
MSC: The secretive Geneva shipping family with the global empire
This content was published on
They control 20% of global container transport on the high seas and are the fifth-richest Swiss family: the very secretive Aponte family.
The result: although the gross tonnage (GT) of container ships sailing under German control has risen from 29 million to 30.2 million GT, Switzerland is now ahead with 34.7 million GT and China with 31 million GT. The GT is the measure of the total size of a ship.
According to VDR Managing Director Martin Kröger, the fact that China has also overtaken Germany is primarily due to intra-Asian transport, which China serves with many small container ships.
Translated from German by DeepL/jdp
This news story has been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team. At SWI swissinfo.ch we select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools such as DeepL to translate it into English. Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles.
If you want to know more about how we work, have a look here, if you want to learn more about how we use technology, click here, and if you have feedback on this news story please write to english@swissinfo.ch.
Is your place of origin, your Heimatort, important to you?
Every Swiss citizen has a Heimatort, a place of origin, but many have never visited theirs. What’s your relationship with your Heimatort? What does it mean to you?
Powder permitted to help with holes in Emmental cheese
This content was published on
The Federal Administrative Court has authorised the use of hay flower powder in the production of Emmental cheese with a protected designation of origin.
Estates of Schwarzenbach and Maillart honoured by UNESCO
This content was published on
The estates of Swiss writers Annemarie Schwarzenbach (1908-1942) and Ella Maillart (1903-1997) are to be included in the Memory of the World Register.
Novartis announces billion-dollar investments in the US
This content was published on
Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis plans to invest a total of $23 billion in the US over the next five years to expand production and research.
Money laundering and paedophile crime increase in Switzerland
This content was published on
The number of suspected cases of money laundering, reports of threats against officers and cases of paedophile crime increased last year, in some cases sharply.
Toblerone invests in Bern and puts new emphasis on Swiss cross
This content was published on
Since US multinational Mondelēz relocated part of Toblerone production to Slovakia in 2023, the company is no longer allowed to call its chocolate “Swiss made”.
Switzerland and 35 other members declare support for WTO
This content was published on
Switzerland and 35 other members have recommitted themselves to honouring the rules of the Geneva-based World Trade Organization (WTO).
You can find an overview of ongoing debates with our journalists here . Please join us!
If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.