As the global economic
meltdown continues to
impact the freight forwarding
industry, more and more
companies are trying to maintain
business by extending their reach
and targeting areas beyond their
expertise such as project cargo.
According to Warren Erfmann of
Swift Freight, the key to success in
the project market is – and always
will be – experience.
“With the current global
economic crisis, the volume of
massive projects around the world
has slowed down as well. A lot of
major industrial projects have been
put on hold or pushed back,” he
said. “In Africa, however, there is
much opportunity as the number of
projects has been on the rise.”
Currently, the biggest projects
taking place in the world are in the
Bric nations and Africa.
“China and India are far more
advanced compared to Africa
in terms of infrastructure and
therefore when it comes to a
specialist market such as project
cargo there are many opportunities
that most freight forwarding
companies can exploit,” said
Erfmann. “But Africa is still an
under-developed continent in terms
of infrastructure where the lack of
roads, heavy transport equipment
and professional personnel with
the know-how to handle project
movement are few and far
between. It is very important to be
established and have a running setup
even before you start looking
into the possibility of handling
heavy lift movement or any other
project cargo on the continent.”
For this reason there has been a
major focus on project cargo within
Swift Freight.
“We have set up a dedicated
projects department, headed up
by Dinesh Singh, which has been
concentrating on supporting a lot
of UN/military and life support
companies in the Middle East and
Africa region,” said Erfmann.
“We have also been doing a lot
of heavy air and sea lifts and air/
sea charters to meet some of the
projects. We are supporting these
missions with everything from
general procurement of day-to-day
consumables to dry and perishable
food supplies.”
He said Afghanistan was
a market in which Swift had
traditionally never been very
active but in recent times had been
focusing on and volumes had
steadily picked up there.”
CAPTION
Warren Erfmann ... volumes picking up
in Afghanistan.
