Squeeze ahead after tip-top 2007

IT HAS been a somewhat rumbustious year for a lot of people in the freight industry – with the happy economic times in SA still continuing. There are certainly no complaints from Graham Peinke, MD of SACD Freight. “It’s going flat out,” he said. “Imports are just flying in, and we’re operating at capacity in all our areas of business.” But, while it’s been month-on-month of new records at SACD this year, Peinke said they anticipate a bit of tightening in 2008. Forwarding has been a good business to be in this year, according to Margrit Wolff, MD of Buffalo Freight. Her response was brief and to the point. “This year has been much busier than last year, and next year things will be 100% better. “That do you?” she asked FTW in her usual pithy way. Container road transport has also been showing all the signs of health in 2007, according to Kevin Martin, MD of Freightliner Transport, and vice-chairman of the Durban harbour carriers’ section of the SA Association of Freight Forwarders (Saaff). “Our business went up 29% this year,” he said, “following an even better rise of 63% in 2006.” Next year Martin sees things levelling off – with the pressures of the SA interest rates, and the high oil price. It’s been a bit of a coming-and-going year in the SA air cargo industry, according to Alwyn Rautenbach, MD of Airlink Cargo. “We’ve seen the disappearance of Das Air Cargo, and the recent start-up of operations from Cargo B,” he said. But air cargo in general, he added, has continued to grow. “There’s been an adequate 3.5%-4% growth in the volumes intended for export,” Rautenbach told FTW, “while imports have increased by about 10%.” He also noted that there had been an increase in the number of charter flights into Africa. This especially for the mining industry, whose development all around the southern region has “obviously stimulated” air cargo. “Because of infrastructure development in SA it will always be a market for imports,” he added, “although I expect a tightening in this growth next year because of the interest rates. “Export growth I expect to remain at about 3.5%-4% a year.” The shipping line industry looks to have different international fortunes from those of the local SA sea trade. Globally, the big carriers are definitely anticipating a bit of an off time ahead – despite all the big newbuildings being ordered, according to an agency executive. “I feel they are overextending,” he said, “and I don’t think the markets will support so much new capacity.” But the SA scene, he added, is a different story – especially on the Far East run. “On this trade shipping lines have had a fantastic year – particularly for imports. “But the Rand/US$ exchange rate has also helped exports – and even the outbound ships have been running pretty full.” He doesn’t expect any sort of radical change next year, although does forecast that things will level off a bit. Some companies may be expressing ecstasy about individual results, according to Pete Williams, MD of Safcor Panalpina, but a national overview of trade shows that growth has slackened this year. “It has not been as frantic as last year,” he said, “and we’ve seen the overall growth taper off. Indeed, certain sectors slowed down quite dramatically.” His outlook for next year is that “it will be tougher” – although, he added, this might be somewhat negated by business confidence being so high in the fourth quarter.