Maltese freight comes out of the box 22


There has been a shiſt in Malta’s freight market from containers to trailers, reckons Malta agent Sullivan Shipping. According to Transport Malta figures, overall, the market in 2012 was probably slightly up on 2011; there was a 1% decrease in containers which, at around 75,000teu annually still account for the majority – but this was counterbalanced by a 27% rise in the number of trailers – now around 22,000 a year. This, coupled with the fact that trailers are on average getting larger as more operators introduce high- cube units, meant that the market probably showed a reasonably substantial increase. The reasons for the shiſt are


not hard to guess, says cargo and logistics operations manager, Ian Sullivan: “People want goods


faster.” The shiſt to trailers has also been accompanied by a shiſt from full load to groupage – by either mode of transport, he believes. “We are doing more and more seafreight groupage from the Far East, which is a new phenomenon. (The improved Maersk service into Malta Freeport has livened up the market.) But groupage is increasing from Germany and Italy too.” Not so long ago, a retailer might


buy a few container loads at a time and hope that they could sell them, but faster and more frequent transport from all parts of the world has encouraged just-in-time stockholding patterns. Sullivan has teamed up with


French-owned haulier Vectorys to operate a service from Italy to Malta in place of the co-loading


arrangement it had previously. Vectorys does a lot of business from mainland Europe to North Africa and Malta dovetails nicely with some of its movements – and shipping from Europe via Malta to Libya can make sense under some circumstances, says Sullivan. Like other Maltese agents,


Sullivan sees scope for business in Libya once the problems of congestion are sorted out. “We are, arguably, the best-served port in the Mediterranean. And as well as sea services from Libya, there is the possibility of flying there. The market is becoming more liberalised and there are a lot of private individuals involved, though the Government still needs to get organised. Oil production – the main economic driver – is already back to pre-revolution


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levels, so there is money coming into the country.” Sullivan will set an office up in


Libya at some stage, but for the moment prefers to work with selected


partners. “You need


someone who knows their way about there – if you don’t know the local system, you can make mistakes. And also it’s not cheap there, especially if you employ expatriates – though you can get very good local people.” At the moment, though, the concept of freight forwarding scarcely exists in Libya, although the locals are fast learners. It will also be important to


consider where to set up offices in Libya - Tripoli, Benghazi or Misurata - bearing in mind that much will depend on the shape and type of Government that


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Issue4 2013


emerges. Sullivan,


always on the


look-out for other new market niches, has recently started an internet delivery service into Malta. One problem that Maltese online shoppers face is that many retailers in the UK won’t deliver larger items to Malta, so what Sullivan’s new Boxnotch. com service offers is the ability to quote its UK warehouse as a delivery address; the online retailer delivers there – oſten for free, depending on the pricing structure – and Boxnotch moves the goods from there to the consignee in Malta.


Typical


delivery prices are €34 for a flat- packed bed or €30 for a TV, so Maltese buyers can still enjoy competitive prices compared with what they might pay with local retailers and they of course


///MALTA


get much better choice – or in some cases buy things that are just not available locally. The idea has been copied by


other Maltese operators, “but we were the first,” insists Sullivan. Boxnotch could also be used


by retailers buying stock or supplies online themselves for instance, and the concept could also be extended to other small countries where delivery of online purchases is a problem. The other strand to Sullivan’s


business is liner agency. It represents offline carrier Hanjin and also the Xpress Container Lines feeder service from Naples. Malta has done well to attract the range of shipping services it has, but it could do better still if it invested more in ship servicing facilities like bunkering or repairs, Sullivan considers.


Attrans looks across the water


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Attrans may be a Maltese-based haulier, but these days much of its business doesn’t touch the island, says managing director Philip Attard. Recently, for instance, it has seen a big increase in traffic between the UK/North Europe and North Africa – mainly Tunisia and Morocco. “In fact, we now have a dedicated team for North Africa at our new office on the Dutch-Belgian border,” Attard explains. Trailers operate direct to North Africa from Genoa, mainly carrying fashion goods out of Tunisia and Morocco. It’s this type of business, not


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the traffic to and from Malta, that keeps Attrans’ 300-trailer fleet fully occupied. Its niche are the less well-served places – like North Africa, or indeed Malta – rather than the mainstream routes like Holland/Italy. That said, the company offers


regular trailer services between Malta and all the major European countries, including the UK. Genoa is a major hub for Attrans;


while there may be busier ferry ports in Europe like Dover, Genoa sits in the middle of a spider’s web of ferry services criss-crossing the Mediterranean. As well as the ferry links to North Africa and Malta, there are also services to and from Turkey, allowing traffic to be cross- docked between Turkey and Tunisia, for example, and there are also services to Spain. It also has some useful deepsea links; Attrans recently used the port for some South American project


shipments. Many of the trailers Attrans


operates are high-cube units including several of a unique design that it actually builds itself at its workshop at Hal-Far. It used to buy them from an Italian manufacturer, but when the company went out of business, it took over the tooling, moved it to Malta and started to assemble the bodies itself on bought-in chassis. So far, all the trailers built have been for Attrans’ own use. “We don’t sell them to third parties – because we can’t make enough of them for ourselves,” says Attard. The Attard high-cubes are of extra-strong


made ribbed


steel – giving them, at first glance, the appearance of ISO shipping boxes. The extra durability is vital to prevent sensitive cargoes like hanging garments or pharmaceuticals being damaged on the long sea voyages that Attrans typically sends them on; they do weigh more than standard units, but that isn’t a problem with the lightweight cargoes they carry. As well as the dry-box trailers,


Attrans also operates reefers. Again, it tends to go for niche markets rather than the high- volume produce trade


from


Morocco to Northern Europe. A recent load was a consignment of live bees – all safely confined in special containers - from Belgium to North Africa. They’re sensitive creatures apparently, so temperature-controlled transport is essential.


Profit from our experience


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