“I am pretty confident that we can maintain the maritime cluster of Hamburg,” answers Managing Director of the German Shipowners Association, Max Johns when asked how he will address the ambition of the Danish government to convert Denmark and Copenhagen into “Europe´s Singapore.”

Germany ranks number 1 in terms of the world´s container fleet with a market share of some 35%  in 2012. the most well-known companies are Hapag Lloyd and Hamburg Süd but more important is the abundancy of local and regional players which, when combined, account for the world´s biggest container fleet. Additionally, Germany has a historic finance structure of banks and loaning institutions on the one side and the KG-scheme on the other. Both of these systems have suffered severely since the financial crisis in 2008 and left the German maritime industry with a huge question mark of how to find adequate financing in the future. The cornerstone, the KG project model, is still to be rebuild. But still, Germany has a tradition of established  finance structures.