EASTERN EUROPE\\\


The links between Scandinavia and the countries of eastern Europe and the Baltic are strong and these are reflected at Swedish- headquartered forwarding and shipping company Greencarrier, says CEO Björn Eklund. Greencarrier has offices in Poland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Poland is a good market and a big trading partner with all the Nordic countries “and is an important part of our strategy,” Eklund explains. “The Polish economy has been expanding a lot over the past ten years.” Swedish retailers like Ikea have


a major presence in Poland but even before that there were strong links between the two countries. “Swedish companies were really early into setting up production in Poland and it is not that difficult to run companies there,” Eklund explains. The downside to this large though,


market, is fierce


competition as not only are all the big multinationals present but there a myriad of home- grown forwarders and transport


operators too. Greencarrier’s response is to


look beyond the Poland/Nordic, mainly truck-based, market to the air and sea forwarding market to and from Poland itself. The fact that it has offices in China puts it in a strong position to tap into the burgeoning trade between Poland and the Far East. Greencarrier’s position in Poland


is further strengthened by the fact that it owns 60% of its local office there. While Poland is a very open market, you need to be attuned to the nuances of local culture; for instance, whereas Scandinavian companies tend to have very ‘flat’ management structures with relatively junior management able to take many decisions, in Polish firms people look to the man at the top to give firm and clear guidance. This might be a hangover from


Iron Curtain days, though if it is, in other respects Poland has long shaken off the habits and customs of its Communist past. “They have in fact adopted very quickly and are a very Western-orientated country nowadays,” Eklund


Bio boost for Helsinki


The Port of Helsinki and Metsä Fibre have signed a letter of intent to develop Helsinki’s Vuosaari as the export harbour for pulp produced at the planned new bio-product mill in Äänekoski. It is expected to increase the port’s cargo volume by 10% or around 800,000 tonnes, as well as create up to 100 jobs in different parts of the logistic chain, says port managing director, Kimmo Mäki. “This is one of the biggest increases in business that we have seen for some years. We have many reasons to be content.” Meanwhile, one of the largest


feeder carriers in the world, X-Press Feeders, started calling Helsinki in May. The port


is also building a


new terminal in West Harbour, due to go into operation in 2017. Helsinki, like other ports in


the Nordic region must however grapple with the new sulphur emission rules due to come into


force from the beginning of 2015. Vuosaari Harbour director,


Jukka Kallio, said: “Some of the shipping companies will install scrubbers, some owners will use MGO/MDO and some of the oil refineries will start producing new type of low- sulphur fuel and certainly some of the shipping companies will use that as well.” Nevertheless, the cost of


sea transport will definitely increase. Mäki


says: “By how


much is still a question mark, depending on the price of new fuel. We as a port owner believe that shorter sea legs will be used instead of the longer, so traffic between Finland and Estonia will increase.” Large scale use of LNG is not


yet a reality in Helsinki and cannot be expected to have any effect until 2016/17 at the earliest, said Jukka Kallio, who warned: “It is causing a lot of extra cost for the Finnish export industry.”


declares. The Baltics are also important


to Greencarrier. It has had an office in Estonia since 2007 and now employs about 50 people. The country may be small, but it is an important transit point for Russia, so it tends to punch above its weight.


Issue 1 2015 - Freight Business Journal


19 Greencarrier in Pole position This may well be affected by


the sanctions on that country’s international trade. So far, there has been little effect, but the full force of sanctions will probably not be felt until next year and local management is warning of a big drop in orders from January. Russia may well do more business


direct with China. Lithuania and Latvia are also


major areas for Greencarrier and, in the case of the latter, it is also the location for Greencarrier’s service centre, which looks aſter ‘back office’ functions such as finance and book-keeping. “It’s easy to find qualified people there,”


Eklund


says. The idea of a Swedish company


recruiting people in Lithuania to carry out such capitalistic tasks as invoicing and finance, moreover in fluent English, would have sounded like the ravings of a madman a quarter of a century ago.


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