E-commerce creating new cargo concerns
August 22, 2017
For the most part, the Port of Vancouver’s (PoV) mid-year shipping news is good.
It reported an overall 4% increase in cargo handled for the first six months of this year versus 2016. Record shipments of grain and containerized cargo were at the forefront of the port’s upbeat numbers.
PoV’s mid-year report also supports analysts’ predictions that the global shipping sector, especially the container side of that equation, is rebounding from a difficult 2016.
In the short term that is good news for shippers and the rest of the world’s trade supply chain.
But the hard reality for major North American ports and trade gateways like Vancouver is that major change is on the horizon, not just for global freight carriers, but also for the infrastructure that handles the cargo they carry. Those changes could have significant consequences for B.C.’s port operations, which generate billions in wages and economic output.
In its 2017 Port, Airport and Global Infrastructure seaport outlook for North America, real estate and investment management firm Jones Lang Lasalle lists five trends to watch in the freight and logistics services arena.
Among the five are bigger ships and bigger shipping line alliances. Both will place enormous pressure on port cargo efficiency and infrastructure because they will concentrate the number of container ship dockings in larger vessels at fewer ports.
Meanwhile, e-commerce and other disruptive technology in the global economy are changing the way goods are bought and delivered. The pressure here is increasingly on efficiency of loading and unloading cargo containers. That requires more industrial land adjacent to port operations to house larger distribution centres and other facilities, and that, for PoV, is a challenge now that will get far more serious soon.
Considering the importance of the port to local, provincial and national economies, it’s a challenge that needs to be addressed collectively by the port and its many government partners now.
Turkish Cargo sees freight traffic take off in 1H
August 22, 2017
Turkish Cargo registered a double-digit percentage improvement in cargo revenues during the first half of the year, helped by strong growth in the Chinese market.
The Istanbul-headquartered airline saw total cargo revenues increase by 25% year on year during the first six months of 2017 to $580m on the back of a 26% increase in cargo carried to 516,000 tons.
The company said that the improvement in volumes and revenues came on the back of growth in the Chinese market and increased connectivity with the Middle East.
In total, the airline’s cargo business now offers services to 72 destinations while its freighter fleet totals 15: three A310-300s, nine A330-200s, one A300-600 and two B747-400s.
By the end of the year, the airline will have added two B777Fs to its all-cargo fleet, although it will return four of its wet-leased aircraft.
“Having generated a wide corridor extending to Africa from Asia and to the Latin America from the Europe, Turkish Cargo has passed through the first half of 2017 with a great success,” the company said.
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Los Angeles port unveils $1.3 million effort to better track cargo
While consumers can shop online and track packages from the minute they leave the distribution center to their front door, some of the country’s biggest importers can’t get the same precise information about their own imports.
That’s because of an antiquated tracking system at the nation’s busiest seaports of Los Angeles and Long Beach – which handles nearly 40 percent of all imported goods to the United States.
The Port of Los Angeles introduced Thursday what it hopes will be a $1.3 million fix. The pilot project with GE Transportation will deliver cargo information to retailers and truckers weeks in advance, giving them more time to plan.
City can emerge as cold storage logistic hub, say experts
Indore: The cold storage capacity of the state is expected to get doubled to 20 lakh tonne in next two years and Indore has the potential to emerge as a logistic hub in the state, industry experts said at an event on Wednesday.
At present, the city has 70 cold storages and in next six months, 12 additional cold storages with a capacity of about 5,000 tonnes each is expected to be operational.
