Zimbabwe volume rebound predicted

TRANSPORTERS OF perishable products are well placed to gauge a country’s performance and potential in the perishables sector. Zimbabwe’s outlook for regaining its production capacity is likely to happen, a road freight company that services the Johannesburg to Harare route asserts. “We believe it’s going to take off. The people need to eat and they have the ability to produce,” said Robbie Forbes, director of Transit Freight Co-ordinators. The Germiston-based company maintains offices in Harare. Other offices in Cape Town and Nelspruit assist in the movement of all manner of perishables and other goods on a fleet of 14 refrigerated trucks, four triaxles and four curtain-siders to crossborder destinations like Mozambique, Malawi, Tanzania, DRC, Swaziland and Lesotho. The Shoprite Checkers and Spar supermarket chains use the firm to supply their stores throughout SADC. “Our primary function is to utilise a fleet of 63 refrigerated rigs and unlimited general freight carrier subcontractors to carry out our SADC freight commitments in addition to those of our own,” Forbes noted. And freight transport is not just one-way traffic from SA. “We also transport from Zimbabwe. Flowers are brought by road to Johannesburg, from where they are air freighted. Zimbabwean bananas are for the local market in South Africa. We move Zimbabwean citrus for export by sea from South African ports,” Forbes said. “Volumes into and out of Zimbabwe have dropped drastically. They are 10% to 15% what they used to be,” said Forbes. But he predicts an eventual Zimbabwean economic rebound that will see volumes return and surpass previous levels.