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"They
continued to make Gothenburg bookings on
Loop 4 and Loop 5 before they realised that
Loop 3 was going directly to Gothenburg
- so there was a delay on the imports.
"2M
will make a direct call from Japan, which
is very good because Japan has a high demand
for high-value sawn timber. Japan is a big
export market for us and on the way back
its [Shenzhen] Yantian and Shanghai - it's
a good import load and it's a good export
load," he said.
Today,
Gothenburg has a balanced annual trade of
850,000 TEU, and it expects the new alliances
will deliver greater volumes which in turn
which will bring greater proportion of direct
calls - far more than the 50 per cent it
has today.
If
Gothenburg's sales pitch works, carriers
will bring about the critical mass to fully
utilise Sweden's road, rail and near-sea
links to exploit Scandinavia's resource-rich
hinterland, which has plenty of box-filling
backhaul cargo.
"As
long as there are new lines, there are volumes.
Before volumes were not really enough to
call direct, but when they merged into G6,
then just a couple of days after, they also
announced they were including Gothenburg
in their loop.
"Merging
the two together brought the volumes needed
for a direct sailing. That's what we are
thinking with the CKYHE group, now that
they have added Evergreen," he said.
In
regard to feeder growth, what Mr Sundmark
wanted was feedering into Gothenburg
for transshipment out - filling direct calling
ocean carriers with backhaul cargo.
"So
now we feeder out. That would be very important,"
he said.
Those
would be feeders from Norway with seafood
and other natural resources. From
the Swedish interior, he said there would
be a steady flow of forest products by rail
and road, consolidated in containers
at Gothenburg.
Sweden
is the world's third biggest exporter of
pulp and paper pulp and lumber - right after
Canada and the US.
Looking
at import goods, when the port receives
a big vessel, its containers are taken
to nearby import facilities, and once deconsolidated,
the boxes are taken to an export area to
be re-filled for export.
Fast
ship turnarounds are a constant demand,
of course, but what is wanted today
by shipping lines is fast turnaround for
their boxes.
"Equipment
management is very important and that is
why we think we can bring value to customers
by offering a fast turnaround. It's something
we have developed, and now we discuss it
with shipping lines. They say it is
'music to their ears'. One of them actually
said that," said Mr Sundmark.
"We
have more exports than imports, which means
that you could fill every box that came
in, and if you can do that in the port area,
you will have a very fast turnaround on
the container," he said.
"We
have the facilities, we have a very good
infrastructure and there's also big investments
going on to raise capacity, new roads, trains
and so on. So we have the facilities, a
great distribution system,everything in
place - so it's very easy to set up."
The
Swedish port has become a source of regional
admiration. The Maritime Institute in Gdansk
(MIG) in its recent report on Gdansk becoming
a container hub for the Baltic, said some
of the best practices can be copied from
Gothenburg's Railport Scandinavia shuttle.
Both
Mr Sundmark and Gothenburg port CEO Magnus
Karestedt said they welcomed the opportunity
to talk to top people in the Far East.
"It's
very good to talk to the headquarters of
these things, because maybe the Swedish
organisation or the European organisation
didn't have the full picture. When we meet
with the senior management, they know the
priorities for the shipping line,"
said Mr Karestedt.
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