The HTG (German Port Technology Association) was founded in 1914 and is a non-profit making organisation focussing on all scientific, technological and economic issues relating to the following areas:

• the planning and construction of ports, port facilities and port equipment;
• the operation of ports and shipment centre facilities;
• the planning, construction and operation of lake and inland waterways;
• hydraulic, coastal and marine engineering;
• research and development projects.

Although technical shipping facilities may have constituted the main focus of the HTG’s remit in the past, the Association’s sphere of interest and activity has made considerable strides over the years. The increasing networking of all areas of life, competing uses, environmental protection and the changes which have taken place within planning and decision-making processes have all combined to lend a more distinctive and significant focus to the interdisciplinary nature of the HTG.