“We presently discern a light upward trend …” said Eurogate CEO Emanuel Schiffer.  Thomas Eckelmann, chairman of the board of management, envisioned better result this year over the previous year.

The year 2009 was characterized by a drastic decline, even though the company managed to post some profit.  The container throughput had declined by two million units – a 12.3 percent drop -- from 14.2 million in 2008 to 12.5 million containers.   The earnings declined by 17.3 percent to 591.4 million euros.  Profit declined by 59 percent to 47.8 million euros.

Eckelmann claimed that his company had succeeded in saving jobs and producing a positive result.  But he acknowledged that the economic crisis had thrown back the development by five years.  Indeed, Eurogate’s investments fell by 60 percent to 97 million euros.  In order to overcome the results of the crisis, the company has been cutting costs since some time.  According to the company’s austerity programme, management executives will take a pay cut of five percent, freeze jobs and refrain from resorting to loan workers. 

Eurogate’s optimism is also seen as a reflection of the recovery being staged in the maritime industry.  The company representatives have seen “several positive signals” from the industry.  The crucial Chinese exports have risen almost to the previous year’s level, while traffic, particularly between Asia and Europe, has been surging and shipping lines like the Neptune Orient Lines (NOL) have started, again, to deploy freighters that had been put out of operation.