Tidy growth as Nigeria makes its mark

A NOW permanent member of the top 10 in the IATA airfreight export agents league, Safcor Panalpina had another year of tidy growth of 17.5%, a turnover of R74.6-million, and took 8th place in 2003. Africa was the company’s main focus, according to Wally Hoddinott, GM for air exports. With a now established route, Nigeria was the main area of development for Safcor Panalpina on the continent. It’s a very difficult market to deal with, according to Hoddinott, with getting imports into the country a tricky task to handle. “But we’ve overcome these problems,” he told FTW, “and see on-going potential.” Not that it’s the only African destination handled by the company. “Indeed,” said Hoddinott, “our airfreight exports span the whole continent.” The company has also been investigating textile exports – which the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (Agoa) allows duty-free into the massive US market. “But we haven’t really pushed this to the limits,” said Hoddinott, “as the strengthening rand has made airfreight high cost for this product category.” But it definitely improved on its automotive product exports – and is still generating promising volumes of business. Said Hoddinott: “These airfreight exports were mostly out of East London and Port Elizabeth – with both of these branches having picked up added turnover from this product category.”