The freight forwarding and customs industry worldwide will not look upon 2016 as a particularly good year. You only had to read the Baltic Exchange reports to highlight this, where cargo volumes seemed to be at an all-time low. The global economic outlook remains shaky despite recent pockets of resilience, according to polls by Reuters. This is an about-turn from those economists who just 3 months ago cited a pickup in international trade as essential for improvement in the world economy. [Baltic Exchange Report, Carly Fields & Lara Shingles, January 25, 2017]
In the world of International transport, the movement of FCLs (Full Container Load), LCLs (Less/part Container Load) and Airfreight gives an indication of market trends. USA Freight Forwarders are privileged to work with freight forwarders and customs agents where it was apparent that there was no pattern to the industry in 2016. Dominant FCL movers did not change their buying patterns to LCL, but shipped FCL’S less frequently. Traditional LCL and airfreight importers moved less cargo. In a nutshell, none of these modes of transport grew.
In the South African context, there were the normal events of acquisitions, e.g. DSV and UTI, Vanguard and ILA. More shipping lines centralised their administration, finances and operations to their Head Offices, with the branches merely performing the sales function.
The industry certainly did see some growth towards the latter part of 2016 due to the SA Rand stabilizing, but there was not the usual “peak season rush”, as in previous years. Our Vice President, Cyril Ramaphosa, stated at the recent World Economic Forum in Davos, that there would be more stability on the political front in South Africa this year. These comments, together with a relatively stable Rand should bode well for importers.
The new Trump administration will be making all the noises of promoting domestic and international growth in the USA. President Trump recently stated that the dollar was too strong. With China’s anticipated growth, it would make sense for the US to increase its international exports.
In conjunction with our USA seafreight partner, CaroTrans Inc., USA Freight Forwarders will continue offering a weekly LCL/FCL into all major ports in South Africa. Having completed our budgets for 2017 we are projecting a 20% growth for the year.