Germany's largest container shipping company Hapag-Lloyd is continuing to avoid the Middle East due to the uncertain situation in the Red Sea.

"We are monitoring the situation very closely on a daily basis, but will divert our ships until January 9," a company spokesperson said on Tuesday in response to an inquiry. Next Tuesday, the Hamburg-based company will decide again whether the ships should continue to be diverted via the Cape of Good Hope at the tip of South Africa.

In Yemen, the Huthi rebels have declared their solidarity with the radical Islamic Hamas in the Gaza Strip and have repeatedly attacked ships off the coast under their control. On December 15, a Hapag-Lloyd ship was also attacked. In the coming weeks alone, several dozen container ships from the world's fifth-largest container shipping company are expected to use the faster route through the Suez Canal and the Red Sea.

Meanwhile, Danish rival Maersk announced on Tuesday that it would discuss using the route in the near future - despite the recent attack by Huthi rebels on one of its freighters in the Red Sea. Maersk relies on the multinational security initiative OPG, which aims to facilitate maritime trade through the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.

(Report by Vera Eckert, written by Philipp Krach. Edited by Olaf Brenner. If you have any queries, please contact our editorial team at berlin.newsroom@thomsonreuters.com (for politics and the economy) or frankfurt.newsroom@thomsonreuters.com (for business and markets).)