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.