16
ScANdINAvIA
ISSUE 4 2010
A world turned upside down
Imports from Scandinavia to the UK are massively imbalanced in favour of southbound flows, right? Think again – the recession has turned everything topsy-turvy with a surge in Swedish imports and a weak Pound making the UK a much more competitive exporter. Suddenly, the empty trailers are all going the other way.
Little and often keeps trailers moving
A trend towards manufacturing to order and minimising stockholding means smaller and more frequent movements – and this in turn demands strong network support, says Rene Falch Olesen, chief commercial officer of DSV Group. There were “no major
bankruptcies” among Scandi hauliers during the recession, he says, but the trucks parked up during the downturn, in response to loss of volume and strong downward pressure on rates, have not all returned to service. Rates have recovered
accordingly. But DSV, which subcontracts most of its international linehaul, finds that operators are more willing to walk away if they’re not satisfied with the terms on offer. “The loyalty is less,” Falch Olesen says. DSV focused on improving productivity
during its integration of ABX, owned by
in some countries such as Italy, just at the time the market went into freefall. Scandinavia boasts strong
Falch Olesen
Belgian Railways until 2006 before being bought by 3i and then DSV in 2008. The company was big in road and rail across Europe, especially France, Germany, Spain and Italy, and had sea and air freight and contract logistics interests worldwide. The acquisition of the company in autumn 2008 doubled the size of DSV’s air and sea network, and also resulted in a major upscaling of its European road operations
currencies with Sweden and Denmark remaining outside the eurozone, while Norway is not even an EU member. As a high- cost country that felt it was losing competitiveness, Denmark implemented tax cuts which have stimulated domestic consumption. Swedish import demand is also increasing sharply. The relative weakness of the
Pound has given the UK a chance to export across the North Sea again, resulting in a rebalancing of the traditional 70% import, 30% export allocation of round- trip costs. “I had never seen empty units
going from Scandinavia to the UK before, but it’s happening now,” Falch Olesen says. DSV applied capacity surcharges out of the UK in mid-October for the first
time, a month after introducing surcharges on import trailers into Sweden. The UK was primarily a westbound market for Swedish forwarder and trailer operator NTEX until the recent reversal of the historical pattern, agrees Steve Havercroft, MD of the company’s UK arm in Immingham. “It’s been a fight to get trailers
back this year,” he says. “Exports are flying out of here and rates are going up. It kicked in before the Pound dropped against the krona, led by the steel and chemical industries. The challenge is to avoid discounting westbound, because that gives you problems in the longer term.” NTEX, specialising mostly in groupage, last year took over Davis Freight, which was more active in the full-load business. The company now offers daily full-load departures through
Immingham and Tilbury plus a minimum of three groupage departures per week to Gothenburg, where parent NTEX AB has its own warehouse. Danny Morrison, director of another Immingham forwarder, OceanBlue, confirms the UK is suddenly exporting a wide range of products across the
North Sea, including chemicals, machinery and clothing. A fall in westbound movements has offset a 25% increase in demand for OceanBlue’s road freight services to Scandinavia this year. The company recently had to make an unprecedented decision and bring eight empty trailers back to the UK.
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