Export surge into Zimbabwe creates container repositioning dilemma

‘Spoornet must come to the party’
TERRY HUTSON
DURBAN REMAINS a major point of entry for cargo into Africa for MSC Logistics. And some refreshing new approaches by Spoornet leave MSC Logistics’ managing director Lawrie Bateman hoping that rail may still have an increasing role to play in moving cargo to and from Durban.
“Spoornet has to come to the party with a package compatible with that of road transport,” he says, adding that he’s nevertheless excited with recent trends from the rail operator, despite the recent 3% hike. Until now MSC has strongly supported rail, with up to 88% of its traffic going by train.
“Delays at the border from the rail side of things are minimal compared with road although trains are being held up further into Zimbabwe at Rutenga Junction.”
Bateman says that in the last few months there’s been an improvement in the volume of traffic moving across the border into Zimbabwe, whether by road or rail. The Cross Border Association has established useful structures and is working towards bringing closer co-operation between the South African and Zimbabwe customs clearances at Beit Bridge.
“What we really need is for a single customs clearance point instead of two as at present. Current delays on the road side can be as high as five days, which I suppose is an improvement on the seven to eight days it once was.”
This year is in fact proving to be MSC Logistics’ best year for exports into Zimbabwe, up something like 40% between May 2003 and April 2004. On the other hand imports ex Zimbabwe have dropped, resulting in a serious re-positioning problem for containers. In April small punitive measures were introduced to encourage the return of empties but it is still early to tell what effect this is having.
Imports from other cross-border states are however proving excellent, particularly those from Lesotho, Swaziland and Zambia.