Arthur Sullivan
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The German government has given final approval to a controversial deal that will see the Chinese shipping company COSCO take a minority stake in a container terminal at Hamburg port.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Last month it was announced that Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s three-party coalition government was revisiting a decision made in October 2022 to give the go-ahead to the deal.<\/a> The review came when it emerged that the Tollerort container terminal had been classified as critical German infrastructure earlier in 2023 by Germany’s national cyber security agency, the BSI.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, on Wednesday, chief government spokesperson Steffen Hebestreit said the government was sticking to the October decision, which caps COSCO’s stake in the Tollerort terminal at 24.99%. That compromise had been reached following intense opposition to the deal from the Greens and the Free Democrats (FDP), coalition partners of Scholz’s Social Democrats (SPD).<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Tollerort terminal is owned by the Hamburg port logistics company HHLA. The company says the deal will make Hamburg port a preferred destination for COSCO and help secure jobs. It also said the agreement would strengthen Hamburg’s national and international importance as a logistics location.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Close to one-third of the goods handled at the port already come from or go to China.\u00a0China<\/a>\u00a0has been Germany’s biggest trade partner for the past seven years, with the value of trade between the countries rising\u00a0to a record \u20ac298 billion ($320 billion) in 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That’s despite a heightened political debate in Germany over the extent to which Berlin is dependent on its economic relationship with Beijing.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\nGovernment tensions on the issue<\/h2>\n\n\n\n