German government approves Chinese stake in Hamburg port

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Chinese shipping giant Cosco will buy up to 24.9% in a Hamburg port. /Fabian Bimmer/Reuters

The German government has confirmed that it would allow a Chinese firm to buy a stake in a Hamburg port, after the terminal was classed as critical infrastructure.

The government gave the go-ahead in October for state-owned Chinese shipping giant Cosco to buy up to a 24.9 percent stake in the Tollerort container terminal in Hamburg.

Initially, security concerns were raised over the sale of the infrastructure to Chinese investors, but Chancellor Olaf Scholz resisted calls to ban the sale outright.

In April, Berlin said it was reassessing whether to allow the sale to go ahead.

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But on Wednesday a government statement said the original approval of a sale of less than 25 percent had not changed. No more details were given about the reasons behind the decision.

Cosco initially sought to purchase a larger 35 percent stake in the port before a compromise agreement was announced.

On Tuesday, Scholz said "We should aim not for a decoupling, but a smart de-risking."

Also on Tuesday, China's foreign minister Qin Gang met his German counterpart Annalena Baerbock in Berlin.

For a seventh year in a row, China was Germany's main trading partner in 2022, accounting for just under $320 billion of trade – up 21 percent from 2021.

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Source(s): AFP