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MALTA FEATURE


Maltese-based haulier Attrans is putting the finishing touches to its own operating platform in Genova, Italy, says managing director Philip Attard. “It will be our ‘home from home’ in Italy, with warehousing, workshops, parking, driver facilities, offices – the complete set-up, in fact. It’s also in exactly the right place. Genova is also where most of our trips start and end,” he explains. “Like all


Maltese operators, our problem is that our drivers are always on the road. Continental-based drivers can always come back to their home depot, but for ours, that is not possible. The new depot will be a place where drivers can sit down and relax, and there will be showers and so on.”


There will also be 1,000 sq m of warehousing, which will make it possible to drop off


loads going to places not on Attrans’ own network, rather than having to rely on a third party. It will also be possible to make timely repairs to trailers before they set off on the long haul north, using an in-house stock of spares.


mirror-image


There is already a northern of


the Genova


hub, in Holland, but this is based on a rented warehouse and third-party suppliers. Costs


in the Netherlands are much higher, and it doesn’t really pay to have your own set-up, says Philip Attard.


In Genova, Attrans will in fact be taking over a former truck dealership, including all the staff, servicing and equipment. Like many Maltese companies, Attrans is a very hands-on firm, preferring to do as much of its own repair and maintenance as possible. It must be one of


the few trailer operators that actually builds its own trailers. Being based on a small island, a long way from the nearest part of mainland Europe, makes for self-reliance.


In time, the new Genova site could become an operating centre, which might allow Attrans to penetrate the Italian market to a greater degree, but it is early days yet. Setting up a business in Italy is a complex process and the new operation will need to be bedded down first before taking matters a stage further.


Attrans serves Malta from


the whole of Europe, including the UK where it is represented by Manchester-based Staples. However, Europe is not the whole story. The company is also very active between Tunisia and Europe, a market that has settled down quite well following the change of regime in Tunis. The trade is in fact much better-balanced than Europe/Malta as the island now exports very little that Attrans’ trailers could carry; Philip Attard reckons that the total export trade by road, by all operators, would fill no more than five trailers a week. Libya was another market, but understandably is on hold for the foreseeable future. Even if shipping operators were still going into the


ISSUE 3 2011 Attrans goes for independence in Italy country, getting paid would


be a problem as the Libyan banking system has ceased to function. Even before civil war broke out, Libya wasn’t the easiest place to do business in. Attrans has also been busy in


the car trade, running its own car transporters to ferry second- hand vehicles from the UK to Malta – both countries drive on the left. However, it has now branched out, becoming an agent for the monthly CIDO car-carrying service from Japan and Asia. Malta has become a good market for second-hand cars from Japan (where they also drive on the left).


“There always was a market for Japanese cars, and in fact they’ve been coming in since the mid-1990s, but they used to be shipped in by container,” explains Philip Attard. “It’s a good complement to our car- transporter business.” Japanese vehicles are popular with Maltese buyers; they are generally only about three years old when Japanese motorists dispose of them, thanks to that country’s draconian emission laws and tend to accumulate lower mileages than UK vehicles. So far at least, the flow of second-hand vehicles does not seem to have been affected by the Japanese earthquake.


Malta economy: a small but star performer


Economic growth of 3-4% would hardly have been remarked on four years ago, but that is enough to make Malta a star performer in an economically straitened EU. With its well- founded and conservative banking sector and strong savings ratio, the economy never experienced the great depths of depression seen in the UK and elsewhere. Inevitably, some industries have suffered, especially the all-important tourist trade. The latter has also been affected to some extent by events in Libya, which has scared off some of the more cautious holidaymakers. As a freight market, Malta is lively if limited. Generally speaking, most trade is in the hands of 3-4 companies in most of the sub-segments of


the freight market, be it full load containers, road trailers or airfreight. As one forwarder put it, “It’s a difficult market to grow in, and sometimes it’s a challenge just to survive.” In containerised


seafreight


terms, the country handles around 70,000teu a year, of which around 60,000teu


are


imports and the remainder exports.


Road trailers are also important in this market and tend to dominate the European groupage sector, although container groupage is significant in the Far East market too. As Maltese traders seek to cut stock levels and move to just- in-time replenishment, most forwarders expect groupage to play an increasingly important part in the local freight market.


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