Jade da Costa . . . West Africa business has increased significantly.
New Accra operation facilitates growth
THE RAPID growth of trade between South Africa and the continent’s West Coast has encouraged freight forwarders Intraspeed to open a satellite office in Accra
to handle business into
the region.
The year 2002 saw tremendous growth for airfreight shipments into Africa for us, says managing director Jade da Costa. “In addition to our existing volumes to East and Central Africa, our West Africa business increased significantly. This led to the opening of the Accra satellite office in August to facilitate these volumes.
“The office acts as a release facility for our Ghana traffic, and also allows us to tranship to destinations which we were previously unable to reach. These are in regions such as Mauritania, Sierra Leone, Burkina Faso and various other states that have limited services from South Africa. The office also allows us to conduct collect shipments for certain clients to Ghana.”
East African volumes have increased steadily, he
says, with weekly consols being sent to Kampala, Kigali and Dar Es Salaam.
“Despite the elections in Kenya, and subsequent cautious and slow economy, we were still able to move two consol loads per week into Nairobi. This volume has seen our Nairobi office operating at very productive levels within its first year of trading. Our Nairobi operation also gives us a distinct advantage in terms of distribution in and around the entire East and Central African region.
