SCANDINAVIA\\\
It’s looking bright up north
Europe has an unlikely economic star – Scandinavia. While all around them other European countries try to stave off double- dip recession, head north for some of the strongest growth rates in the continent.
Scandinavians rediscover their trading credentials A
mid all the gloomy talk of double-dip recession and
a struggling global economy, Sweden seems to be defying gravity at the moment, recording growth of around 5-6% in recent quarters. True, the country was badly hit by the world economic turmoil of 2008/09 but has recovered strongly since, on the back of a surge in exports. It remains to be seen whether
Sweden can continue to pull off this trick or whether it will succumb to the troubles of the wider world economy. But current economic policy is certainly business-, trade- and export-orientated to a much greater extent than in the past. There have though
been
some casualties from the recent recession, most notably the country’s second car-maker Saab, which at the time of writing was still looking to find its way out of receivership. Outsiders
tend to have a
somewhat distorted view of Sweden. It’s not all lumber and reindeer skins – in fact agriculture and forestry accounts for only 1% of an economy that has long since diversified into engineering, high tech and the knowledge industries. Sweden has been
described as a “little Germany” in that respect, with a strong manufacturing and engineering sector taking advantage of favourable currency shiſts to sell more of its products abroad. In freighting terms, though, it
is true that the huge volumes of timber, paper and forest products have tended to dominate southbound flows, although during the recession many of the trailer operators found that the balance had shiſted the other way with more being exported from the UK than was coming in – rather against the trend of Sweden’s international trade flows.
In Denmark, recovery from the
global financial crisis has been more muted. Aſter a sharp cut in GDP of around 4.7% in 2009, the country staged a limited recovery in 2010, only for it to then start contracting again in mid-2011 and rather bucking the general European trend at that time. Nevertheless,
the country has
one of the more modest budget deficits and can still be regarded as one of the EU’s stronger economies. Like Sweden, Denmark has a
very diversified industrial base, although agriculture accounts
for a larger proportion of GDP and refrigerated exports of bacon and dairy products tend to dominate physical export flows. Services are an important export earner, including of course shipping – the AP Möller group and its Maersk Line container arm are based in Copenhagen. For Norway, everyone thinks
oil, though with the North Sea reserves gradually running out the country has slipped well down the rankings of leading
by fairly
DFDS scrubs up well despite weak market
D
exporters to ninth place. Gas however is still important and Norway is the second-largest exporter. Its recent economic patterns
have been similar to Denmark’s with a downturn in 2008/09 followed
lacklustre
growth of around 0.4% in 2010. This pattern of weak recovery looks to be repeated into 2011. A particular Norwegian problem is the strong Krone, which has limited export recovery.
Norway Post buys in Sweden
N
orway Post has bought two more Scandinavian logistics
companies – Swedish-based IntertranspedIA and the latter’s subsidiary, Ytrans. Norway Post plans to integrate them with its CombiTrans AB subsidiary. The two acquired companies
provide single-consignment, part-load and full-load transport services to Central and Eastern Europe and Turkey and currently have combined annual revenues of around SEK 200 million. Ingemar Andersson, the resigning CEO and former owner of
IntertranspedIA and Ytrans said: “It is completely right for us to integrate our operations with those of CombiTrans and thus ensure that we will be even stronger in the single-consignment, part-load and full-load transport sector. We are coming to a professional, expansive logistics environment in which we will be able to continue developing well.” Earlier this year, Norway Post
bought Sweden’s Coldsped. The acquisition is subject to
the approval of the Competition Authorities.
There have been no recent
changes to the ship capacities deployed on UK-Scandinavia. However, the Ficaria Seaways is testing a new design of scrubber that can wash sulphur out of the exhaust gases. The device, which is being developed in cooperation with Aalborg Boilers and engine maker MAN, is part of DFDS’s search for an emission soluition ahead of the 2015 deadline for 0.1% sulphur rules.
land, especially for routes that operate parallel to land based infrastructure.” As for the market, the debt crisis
in Europe is making consumers hesitant, the spokesman added. “We anticipate a weak market, but one more positive trend is that we see exports out of the UK being relatively strong, so we now have a better balance in the UK-Scandinavia trade, which reduces the number of empty trailers out of the UK.”
FDS reports a quiet period, few changes to its route network
or North Sea business, although the Danish-owned company has acquired the Älvsborg Ro-ro terminal in Gothenburg, subject to final approval from the European Competition Authorities which is still pending.
However, a spokesman for DFDS
added: “We do not believe that the scrubber will be a solution that will be ready in 2015 for all ships, so there will be a problem on routes that are in competition with land based transport lanes. If solutions are not found, or if the regulation is not modified and adapted, there will be a modal shift from sea to
Issue 6 2011
23
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