Cover Story Financial Year Review
The Government of India and industry players are investing heavily on aviation sector as a whole and air cargo infrastructure, in particular .DUWKL %DVNDU
6DPLU - 6KDK
'LOHHSD %0
Kanaujia maintained that Safexpress is fully committed to contribute to the country’s logistics infrastructure as well as the economy by investing significantly for this cause. Meanwhile, the company has invested more than Rs 300 cr for creating 17 Logistics Parks across the country and will invest another Rs 300 cr for creating 15 more Logistics Parks, which will be operational in the near future. “As a market and knowledge leader, we have a long-term plan for a sustainable growth. In fact, by way of developing our warehousing infrastructure, we are supplementing the government’s infrastructure projects for the logistics industry, ahead of demand,” he asserted. In the current financial year, Safexpress will further strengthen its Logistics Parks projects on a pan-India basis. In addition, IT and manpower development will be other areas of concentration. At present, the company is offering training to and certifying its own employees as well as employees from various enterprises at its Safeducate Learning Centers in Indore and Delhi. “We would be intensifying this Training & Development venture of ours in this financial year and expecting a massive response from the entire supply chain & logistics segment,” Kanaujia shared. In the year 2011-12, Safexpress achieved double digit growth and expects better performance in 2012-13. He, however, expressed concern about the pressure on profitability in the
34 CARGOTALK
JULY 2012
logistics industry in this financial year owing to huge fuel price hike and slide in the country’s overall economy. “At this moment, the government as well as the industry should take some pragmatic steps to reduce costs,” he said. Bhatnagar was of the opinion that the market will continue to be very soft and flat. “Weakening of rupee is not helping and is a cause of worry. With flat and/or no growth in Europe is adding adversely to the already soft growth. We, at UFM, feel that the market would be slow for another quarter or so,” he stressed. “Though it is difficult to predict numbers for the current financial year, we have plans to bring in at least 10 to 15 per cent top line growth. Sindhu Cargo’s goal is to have a centralised documentation at Bengaluru for our operations all over India with an aim to maintain accuracy, standardise documentation across locations and rationalise manpower,” shared Balaraju. CCLP is planning to expand its terminal further by acquiring more land. “Establishing a second warehouse and a second container yard will be our prime focus in the days to come. We have already approached Concor to allot land for this purpose,” said Bawa. CMA-CGM is also planning to offer air cargo-related services from this (Dadri) terminal in a big way. A customs bonded Air Freight Station along side the Container Freight Station will be the area of concentration for enhancing
multimodal cargo operations for its customers. Air freight will be carried by the company’s own bonded trucks to nearby Delhi airport. This facility will be crucial in view of the proposed airport near Mathura in Uttar Pradesh. The company is targeting all kinds of air cargo from western UP and Noida area, especially pharmaceuticals and other perishable products. For this, CMA-CGM will invest heavily in cold chain systems. Sharma informed that Skyways will continue to grow horizontally. “We would hope to have two more offices in India and one in overseas this year. Our strategy is to grow other verticals like imports, ocean freight, brokerage, fairs & exhibitions while trying to keep a small consistent growth of 10-12 per cent in our strong-hold product – airfreight exports. The total growth in our Group is expected to be around 25-27 per cent this year,” Sharma aired with confidence.
However, SAMIR SHAH, partner, JBS Group, made a serious caution, “It is going to be a tough year ahead. I expect a lot of shippers and importers defaulting on payments or delaying beyond acceptable limits. The strain on the forwarders due to reduced business as well as financial hardships is going to result in unreasonable suicidal competition. I hope, the forwarders maintain their sanity as well as reasonableness and stay together as a group.”
WWW.CARGOTALK.IN