Container imbalance continues to plague shipping line

Opening a shipping company in a landlocked country takes vision and perhaps more than a little passion for both the industry and the country. Turin-born Giorgio Spampinato has plenty of both. He arrived in Africa in the mid 1970s with a friend as “a bit of an adventure” and used the Landrover that had taken them to Kenya to start a tour company. Dealing with tourists on a daily basis palled after a while, and he joined a chemical company, which is where he discovered freight. When MSC decided to open an office in Harare at the start of the 1980s, Spampinato jumped at the chance – and has stayed through the ups and downs of the economy and country “because I love it”. Not content with one land-locked operation, MSC opened in Malawi in 1988 and nominated agents in Zambia with Spampinato being the area manager for Central Africa. MSC Zimbabwe started operating as Medlog Zimbabwe in July 2009. The land-locked operations were started in order to balance the containerised freight in and out of the region. Even when containerisation was in its infancy in the 1980s, MSC was faced with the problem of having full boxes going into the region, and then having to bring out the empties – or fill them. That problem remains. Spampinato’s challenge is to fill the containers – which in itself is a delicate balancing act, as the shipping company does not want to compete with its freight forwarding customers. First prize is to fill the containers with cargo sourced by freight companies, but Medlog is able to provide a full service to larger customers and those who want it. “We tell the industry that we don’t actively go out to get the forwarding and clearing business, but if our clients prefer to deal with a single supplier, we can provide it.” With the surge in imports into Zimbabwe and neighbouring countries, there is plenty of capacity out of the countries, and Spampinato believes there are opportunities to revive exports thanks to the competitive freight rates offered on southbound traffic. Medlog is more than happy to work with potential exporters and their agents to identify and make the most of the opportunities.