Recession forces shippers and forwarders to think outside the box

Importers and exporters are equally
keen to find opportunities in Africa
following the global economic
crisis that left very few countries
unscathed.
According to Jade da Costa, director
of Intraspeed, a company that has been
operating in Eastern Central Africa for
25 years, initial thoughts that the crisis
would not hit Africa were wrong.
“Business has been tough and
volumes have been down. With
African countries looking at GDP
growth being cut to half, it has not
been an easy year,” said Da Costa.
“However the growth in many African
countries is 2-3%, which means that
the economy is growing at the same
rate.”
He believes the time has come
for freight forwarders and logistics
companies to think outside the box and
to give clients a solution to keep their
businesses alive. “Everyone has to
work together through these difficult
and testing times, but I believe this
has given everyone a good wake up in
terms of how to do things and think of
things in the correct manner.”
Da Costa says Intraspeed was
fortunate to be involved in certain
industries that were not affected by
the recession – which allowed them to
stay afloat.
“We now have some expansion
plans which we want to implement
in the next few months. We recently
opened an Intraspeed Zimbabwe office
in Harare with a local partner which
we believe will give us some scope.”
He believes with the mining
industry expected to go back into the
explorations, the times are changing
and the recession may just be over.
“We need to remain optimistic,”
said Da Costa. “I firmly believe that
Africa is the sleeping giant of the
world and volumes will increase in
Africa in the new year. I don’t think
the general peak season that we have
all been expecting will do anything
new and nor will it compare well with
the past. Volumes may increase going
into December, but it is going to be
fairly quiet comparatively, until next
year that is.”