It’s all about the right rate’

Staying on top of rates is one of the biggest challenges when dealing with the Far East, according to Roland Raath, managing director of Cargo Care. It is for this reason the company recently appointed a buying director to continuously monitor the needs of clients and negotiate freight rates from all areas, but specifically the East. “If you are not in touch with rates all the time, it is easy enough to get into the situation where one is overcharging or even losing money,” said Raath. More so, he says, at the current time with peak season surcharges already being levied. “The price has to be right and that is why rates play such an important role.” According to Raath, despite most of the world experiencing very slow growth, with some regions even talking of another recession, most shipping lines have introduced their peak season surcharges already. “It is difficult to justify these charges to a client, especially at a time when the economy has slowed down.” With this business being all about cargo and the ownership and control of cargo, Raath believes much can be argued for the loyalty factor. “One could argue that customers that have been loyal throughout the non-peak season deserve a possible discount from peak season surcharges.” Raath said one of the trends that had been identified was that due to continued price increases by Chinese suppliers there was a swing back to European suppliers who have the capacity and are negotiable. “This, I believe, is definitely a situation the Far East sector will have to monitor carefully.”