Swift sets up dedicated projects department

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.