"We Will Do Anything to Strengthen Our Position"
29.01.2009 (17:52)
Was last year successful for Russian forwarding companies? What results were achieved? Valery Aliseychik, President of Freight Forwarders Association of Russian Federation tells about these and other questions.
– Mr. Aliseychik, 2008 was the difficult year for many cargo owners and operators. Could you tell about state of affairs of forwarding companies? Did financial crisis impact on this sector?
– The financial crisis had bad influence on all sectors including forwarding companies. The beginning of the year was successful enough, but in the second half of the year the volume of cargoes reduced. 397 mln tons of export cargoes were transported in 2007. This volume decreased by 3% and amounted to 385 mln tons in first 9 months of 2008.
It is necessary to remind that forwarding companies – Association members provide foreign trade transportation. The share of transported metals decreased by 3%, the volume of exported fertilizers decreased by 6%, construction materials – by 25%. The volume of exported equipment and machines, wheat, barley, sunflower seed-oil and fish also reduced.
The volume of imported goods also decreased. The volume of import and export cargoes handling in Russian ports will not exceed level of previous year.
The financial crisis impacted on forwarders activity. Many contracts were annulled, there were delays of transported cargoes, the transportation volume reduced. Some companies had to leave forwarding business.
Nowadays, financial crisis becomes world crisis. It will have bad influence on foreign market of forwarding services.
– You said that some participants of forwarding market had to stop their activity due to financial crisis. Do you think, economic recession will promote consolidation of forwarders?
– Crisis hampers consolidations with foreign companies. However there are conditions to consolidate Russian and foreign companies. About 20 forwarding companies with foreign capital participation was members of the Association in 2008.
However, “Russian cargoes for Russian forwarder and carrier” is the main task for the Association. We consider that transportation-forwarding market will be owned by concerns and holdings. Nowadays forwarders understand that it is necessary to consolidate the companies.
We developed united system of transport flows control. There were many questions concerning this problem. We suppose that the Association will persuade all organizations to solve this question.
– Could you tell about plans for the next year? Will you correct them due to current financial situation?
– Development of the legislative base of forwarders activity will be our major task in 2009. We will seek Government support for the forwarding companies.
The Government should pay more attention to the terms of foreign trade contracts. It will allow to persuade our companies to sell biggest part of exported cargoes under CIF terms and imported cargoes – under FOB terms.
The association will work on improvement of forwarding services quality. They should meet world standards. We want to realize principle “Russian cargoes for Russian forwarders”.
There are less branch offices of Russian forwarding companies in other countries, therefore we can’t increase quantity of orders in foreign countries. Unfortunately, the situation on forwarding market becomes worse. However Association will take all possible measures to strengthen positions of Russian forwarders.
Interviewed by Olga Skripkina
Print version
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