The port of Salalah (Southern Oman) grew of the 600% in 15 years of activities that was mainly due to the progressive and continuous improvement of its infrastructures.
Nowadays is one of the most important transshipment port in the world because it receives about 5/6 container-ships per day, that's to say almost 3.6 million TEUs in a year and 7,6 million tons of cargo.

In Russia after many decades has ended the state monopoly in the railway sector: the market has been opened to private operators.

Today, it is divided among more than 2000 companies that operate in a market which constitutes 85% of trade flows across the country. 

The business relationships between Italy and the United Arab Emirates are tight and constantly growing.

In recent years, the Italian presence in the area has been strengthened to such an extent that in 2012 Italian exports to the UAE reached 5.5 billion euro, an increase of 16.7% compared to 2011.

China intends to apply anti-dumping duties (pricing system adopted to prevent third parties to conquer or dominate a market by removing foreign firms or groups of competitors) to all European wines.

In this regard Vinitaly (National Italian activity promoter of Italian wine in the world) has organized a Task Force in China with local operators, opinion leaders and the media, to analyze and deepen this Chinese anti-dumping maneuver, in order to allow to the European firms to continue to grow and export in China.

Obviously, the Italian producers are very concerned about the launch of a survey by China against wines from Europe, whereas in 2012 the EU wine exports to China totaled 763 million euro, of which 77 are from 'Italy, and considering that since 2008 the value of exports to China have risen from 19 million to 77 million euro, ISTAT trend statistics are confirming this for the first 2 months of this year: +42%. 

The transport of food products are counted among one of the many services that IFA - International Forwarding offers its customers both in import and export.

The characteristics of each food are specific and depend on a significant number of factors: origin, destination, season of the year, the specific type of merchandise. The case of the wine is definitely emblematic for the complexity of factors that influence the characteristics in the case where the transport is not operated in a proper manner.

Aside from the sommelier insights, what IFA can guarantee to you is the experience gained through shipments made in recent years to target the Far East.

If you want a quote please contact us with no obligation!

The CMA-CGM has finally launched its new flagship, the containership Jules Verne.

It is the containership number 3 of the CMA CGM "series".

"The series" is a project (co-produced by the French company CMA CGM and the Korean shipyard Samsung Heavy Industries), which involves the construction of 3 containerships gigantic size to increase still and considerably the capacity of the hold.

The ships featured in this project are: Marco Polo, Alexander Von Humboldt and Jules Verne.

The latter is the largest of the three at sea with a capacity of 16,000 TEUs, long 396 meters wide and 54 meters will be used for the service FA1. The service FA1 (French Asia Line) which began on June 5 has developed between Busan, Qingdao, Ningbo, Shanghai, Xiamen, Hong Kong, Chiwan, Yantian, Port Kelang, Suez and Malta, to continue its rotation in the port of Tangier, Souththampton, Hamburg, Bremerhaven, Rotterdam, Zeebrugge, Le Havre, Malta, Suez, Khor Al Fakkan, Jeber Ali and Port Kelang, and ending in Ningbo.

IFA - Internationa Forwarding Agent is ready to embark on these new giants of the sea: fill out the form to request a quote.

Infrastructure works are often accompanied by large investments, direct consequence of a medium and long term vision.

The Port of Rotterdam is an example if we consider the construction of Maasvlakte 2 project.

The goal was to expand the carrying capacity by increasing the area available at the entrance of the docks determining the leadeship of Rotterdam as the first gateway of Europe.

On September 1st 2008, the Mayor at the time Opstelten has given the green light for the construction of Maasvlakte 2, a mammoth project that will require the use of 240 million cubic meters of sand, allowing the construction of a dam of 3.5 km with 7 million tons of rock and 20,000 concrete blocks. The port now has an additional 700 acres.

Interesting is the provision of the timeline from the project website that makes available to monitor all the stages and milestones reached.

The choice of the right logistics partners and routes that guarantee in addition to cost even adequate levels of service to the needs of its customers has always been a key choice in the commercial strategy of IFA - International Forwarding Agent.

IFA for years makes exports and imports with a stopover or transit for the Port of Rotterdam constantly evaluating critical factors and transport conditions in order to provide the greatest competitive advantage to its customers.

The Middle East United Arab Shipping Company (UASC), will bring ships in two line service of the company China Shipping Container Lines (CSCL).

UASC is, among others, one of the shipping company IFA - International Forwarding Agent works with; it will start three services scheduled transpacific thanks to a new partnership with the Chinese CSCL.

Obviously, this service will be an added value to the wide range of services that IFA will offer its customers. Just think of it, this project provides for the release from May 2013 of two 4,250 TEUs containerships from service in the current Asia - Pacific North West (ANW1).

It is clear that the number of available routes will be entirely relevant to those who have the need to channel their goods along this route. In addition, UASC and CSCL will realize an additional new service (AWS1) between South China and the Southwest Pacific in which each of them are going to employ three 4,250 TEUs containerships. Finally, UASC will collaborate current service AAC1 (Central / North China / Korea - South West Pacific) of CSCL, using the brand AWS2. All this, of course, will benefit a lot to all those clients that move goods to destinations such as China and destinations in the South Pacific.

The rotations of the three services are the following:

• AWN1: Nansha, Hong Kong, Yantian, Ningbo, Shanghai, Pusan, Seattle, Vancouver, Nansha.
• AWS1: Nansha, Yantian, Xiamen, Los Angeles, Nansha.
• AWS2: Qingdao, Lianyungang, Shanghai, Ningbo, Pusan, Los Angeles, Oakland, Qingdao.

UASC has stated that its network of services between Asia and the U.S. East Coast via the Panama and Suez will remain unchanged. Thanks to the agreement with the Chinese carrier on routes between Asia and both U.S. coasts, it will offer a total of two coasts seven weekly departures.

IFA, as usual, looks for the best solution to meet the needs of the client, ensuring efficiency, safety, punctuality to its customers, who can rely on a variety of different and designed specifically for their needs services.

The Triple E will debut this summer: they can carry 18,000 containers from the current 5,000. If they were loaded on a train, it should be 110 km long. The ships are as wide as a highway to six lanes, but lack the infrastructure to accommodate them.

They come into operation this summer. Their official name is Triple E, and “E” stands for “Economy, Energy efficient, Environmentally improved” so they can save money, energy and environment.

There is just a problem: they are so big that just few world’s ports can welcome them.

The commercial transportation by sea are adapting ports, with investments of hundreds of millions of Euros to prepare for these mammoths of the oceans premiered by the London Guardian.

They cannot pass through the Panama Canal. They will spend little from the Suez. So in the early days will only route from China to Europe, just few such as the British ports of Southampton are large enough and have deep enough water so that these giants can dock.

Other ports in northern Europe, such as Antwerp in Belgium, are planning extensive renovations to grow and be able to

Circumnavigate Africa, passing the Cape of Good Hope, could become cheaper, given the new price increases for the passage of ships through the Suez Canal, expected to enter in force from May 1st 2013.

ICS (International Chamber of Shipping) notify it, noting that at the time, due to the large contingent difficulties, some shipowners would not be able to sustain the increases.
In particular, the rates would suffer increases of 3% for normal ships and 5% for tankers and gas carrier ships.

These assessments should be included in a context in which recently there have been increases in rates of 3% for the transition from Suez, and in which we must not forget the risk factors related to the route which is still exposed to attack from pirates and under the indirect effects of instability in Yemen.

Precisely because of these problems, the reflections that are making many shipowners are clear, so then they are turning their attention to possible alternatives addressing their fleets through the Cape of Good Hope.

Compared to projected increases in surcharge for transit via the Suez Canal, IFA has already begun to negotiate freight's reductions to the proposed fare increase so that does not impact too much on the cost of transporting goods to its customers.

In recent years the shipping companies have implemented very explicit and aggressive policies to cut costs, acting on the reduction of the fleets’ speed. On the other hand, trade policies have proved to be more aggressive, leading companies to compete for the same loads through the reduction of freight rates, sometimes even below the break-even level.

The largest global player in shipping container, MAERSK LINE is going to stop shipping routes through the Panama Canal for the transport of goods from Asia to the United States, diverting this traffic via Suez aboard larger vessels.
The solution will then use for this ship traffic of 9,000 TEUs via Suez, instead of the 4,500-TEUs via Panama.

MAERSK announced that the last passage through Panama will be carried out next April 7th, 2013, and the first such service through Suez will take place a week later.

This is clearly a strategic choice dictated by the desire to halve the use of ships.

The reason for this choice is to be found in the increase in transit tariffs for the Panama Canal: in recent years those have tripled to a total of $ 450,000 for the passage of a ship of 4,500 TEUs.

The Panama Canal accounts for about 5% of the total global cargo’s traffic (14k ships/year) and it is currently the subject of massive expansion work to be completed by June 2015 with an expected delay of 6 months compared to planned at a cost estimated at $ 5.2 billion.