Company thrives on new trade from India, Far East and Brazil

THE OPENING UP of new trade with India, the Far East and Brazil bodes well for smaller companies providing added-value services to their clients, says Eric Houniet, operations director of Excellence Forwarding. “We are doing what we do best – imports, mostly machinery from Europe and the Far East by ship and by road and spares by airfreight. “We have new clients from Brazil, India and the Far East. These are mostly plastics raw materials and medical supplies – anything from needles to incubators.” The company is looking at doubling its imports with mainly plastic raw materials from the Far East and Brazil, chemical products from Australia and medical supplies and consumer goods from Hong Kong. “We are also looking at doubling our export containers from Cape Town and Durban. “We airfreight mining samples and service the West and East coast states of Tanzania, Angola and the DRC by sea.” The company’s exports into Africa are varied household products and consumables such as fabric softener, soaps and shampoos, and spares, equipment and machinery for the mines. Excellence Forwarding is a family business launched by Eric Houniet’s father Hans Houniet in 1994. As a 19-year-old he started his freight and transport career in The Netherlands. He owned his own transport business in Holland before moving to South Africa in 1979 and worked for forwarding agents before going on his own. With offices at Cape Town’s International Airport and in Sherwood in Durban, the company today has a national staff of 17.