In the recent past, we have seen efforts to create a so-called Middle Corridor, where goods from Asia flowed to Europe by train, but avoided Russia and Belarus. In practice, however, the new route has not proved to be efficient enough, as it has not been able to achieve shorter transport times compared to cheaper sea transport. This corridor is therefore hardly competitive with maritime transport. Interest in its use by PST CLC Mitsui-Soko’s customers has waned. The volume of shipments from China is increasing and the trend is to send smaller shipments at higher frequency.
Among the main flows used by PST CLC Mitsui-Soko for shipments between Asia and Europe, ocean freight is the main mode of transport with the highest volumes. “Sea freight is still the most popular from Asia, despite the increase in transit times as shippers are still unable to use the Suez Canal due to attacks. Another significant part of goods travels by rail via the Silk Road, but of course air transport is the fastest. Transportation via the Middle Corridor has not survived due to competition from maritime transport,” says Jan Bláha, director of transportation at PST CLC Mitsui-Soko.
Overall transport volumes are growing slightly. “We often notice that our clients in many cases experience a reduction in the volumes of individual shipments, but at the same time an increase in the frequency of their shipments. In practice, this means that the customer does not order several containers at once, but rather spreads the shipments over a period of time into several smaller orders,” says Jan Bláha.
He also observes this trend with collection shipments, where the customer does not have, for example, one container sent per month, but splits the volume into several smaller collection shipments within a month. “Thanks to this trend, customers do not have to invest so much in storage space. At the same time, it means cash flow savings. They don’t have to pay for the whole delivery at once, but spread the payment over time. It also means diversification of risk, because if there is an unexpected delay in one delivery, the customer knows that the next delivery is due in a week,” says Jan Bláha.
