CARIBBEAN\\\ Drumming up


business to Trinidad


BSC Essex Freight, with bases in London and Sheffield, is the UK arm of the Caribbean specialist forwarder, and concentrates mainly on the English-speaking islands such as Barbados, Trinidad and Jamaica, plus the smaller islands. The forwarder is in fact one of the biggest in Trinidad, where it has its own offices, says sales manager for the Caribbean, Iſtikhar Ishfaq. The Caribbean may have


suffered a recession, but BSC Essex’s own business is extremely brisk, says Ishfaq, with multiple groupage and full


load boxes


every week to Trinidad, plus car shipments and two or three containers a week to Barbados, for


instance. “Both those two


islands buy all their goods from Europe,” Ishfaq explains. “And even where the goods actually come from China, it still transits the UK, because its the cheapest and quickest routing compared with, say America.” Various liner services are


available, but Geest Line is by far the quickest and most reliable option. “The service to Barbados really does work like clockwork – you can’t fault them.” In contrast, some of the services that use transhipment can go awry at times,


especially if ships fall


behind schedule and miss out the UK call in order to make up time – in which case traffic has to be sent to a Continental port by feeder vessel. In some cases, what should be a two week voyage can extend to nearly a month. While the shipping services


are pretty dependable, customs clearance in the islands can take time, Ishfaq continues. Some islands are better than others – Barbados is pretty slick, for instance – but in other places clearances can take three to four days, although that is a marked improvement on the 7-10 day clearance times of a few years ago. In fairness, island importers are used to the ways of their local customs offices and BSC Essex rarely hears complaints on that score, but staff from the forwarder do make a point of visiting Trinidad and Barbados regular to try and iron out any issues with paperwork and clearance that may be leading to unnecessary delays. Surprisingly, one of the other


big problems, at least on Trinidad, says Ishfaq, is traffic congestion.


Everybody drives there – pedestrians and cyclists are an endangered species – and getting around the island’s cluttered roads is extremely time consuming. So much so, in fact, the Essex Freight has assigned different areas of the islands to each of its


representatives in order to


minimise the amount of time they spend sitting in traffic jams trying to reach customers. BSC Essex also offers a service


to the smaller islands such as St Vincent & the Grenadines, St Lucia or Dominica. Frequency is around fortnightly, but it is a direct container rather than a transhipment operation, which helps preserve service integrity. “It is safer to keep the goods in a container – sending them loose on a vessel is not really what customers want,” says Ishfaq. Containers are also favoured for motor vehicles, as it is cheaper and more secure. In the West Indies itself, Rachel


Hart at Essex Freight’s Trinidad office says that business was growing reasonably steadily, although it is not exactly booming at the moment. “We would always look for more, but we are doing OK,” she told FBJ. One factor that can confidently


be predicted to boost business to the islands are elections, she pointed out. When the islanders go to the polls, major projects such as hospitals, roads and schools that only a few months ago were postponed or cancelled because of


lack of funds mysteriously


become affordable again overnight. There are even plans to upgrade


the islands’ ports, though nothing concrete has been seen yet, says Hart. “However, it is in the pipeline somewhere,” she says. Trinidad is unusual among


the Caribbean islands in that its mainstay is not tourism, but industry, including oil and gas, as well as other manufacturing. That said, Essex’s own business is overwhelmingly import. There is a good choice of


shipping services to Trinidad, offered by the likes of CMA CGM, MSC and Maersk with sailing times of around 14 days from Europe. Essex Freight currently operates


through a local agent, but it has a strong sales presence in Trinidad and is increasingly taking on many operational functions itself, currently employing a staff of nine.


Issue 3 2014 - Freight Business Journal


Rolling cargo specialist Höegh Autoliners services the Europe to Caribbean trade out of Amsterdam, Bremerhaven and, the main port in the trade, Le Havre. There are also good connections from Newcastle via Bremerhaven or Southampton via Le Havre. Cargo can also be transported


from the Mediterranean to the Caribbean, with transhipment on the North Continent. In the return direction, the volume out of the Caribbean is


small, but there is occasional traffic from some of the French-speaking islands. On the return leg most cargo originates in Mexico with smaller volumes from the US. Most of the Caribbean trade


are cars and pick-ups, rolling high and


heavy and heavyweight


equipment on roll-trailers. Volume from Europe to the Caribbean is steady throughout the year, Höegh says, though there is a dip in volume in August and September due to the European holiday season. The fourth quarter


is normally the stronger period. Höegh has two hubs in the Caribbean, one in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago and the other in Kingston, Jamaica. Port of Spain is used as a hub for Europe to Caribbean cargo and Kingston for the volumes coming from East Asia. The line operates its own dedicated feeder to a number of smaller ports from these two hubs. The smaller ports are served on a “case by case” basis. The main Caribbean ports are: Port of Spain, Degrad de Cannes,


Steady business for car specialist


37


Rio Haina, Kingston, Nassau, Havana, Georgetown, Paramaribo using Höegh’s own feeder vessel. Other ports are served by a third party, where service is available.


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