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Creditors Container line calls for rate cuts

11th March 1999, Page 5
11th March 1999
Page 5
Page 5, 11th March 1999 — Creditors Container line calls for rate cuts
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Within hours of the Budget it had emerged that one shipping line is demanding rates cuts of up to a third from hauliers delivering its containers. Deep-sea shipping line Hapag-Uoyd is asking hauliers to tender for a year's work at a time—but with payment for round trips of 600 miles as low as 53p a mile. This figure compares poorly with the rates paid by most other shipping lines, where long-distance trips are generally paid at up to 90p per mile.

Angry container hauliers say HapagLloyd's demands can only be met by lawbreaking operators, "Taxis earn more per mile," says one company.

But Hapag's logistics general manager Alexander Rochlitz insists that hauliers tendering for the carriage of 2,000 containers a week in England and Wales must be legal and operating to "very, very high quality expectations". Ile adds that rates tariffs circulated for the year-long contract are negotiable. "We will meet these hauliers and come to a rate in between," he says. Pressure from Hapag-Lloyd's own customers and the need to offer competitive pricing led to the move, says Rochlitz. The contract, which HapagLloyd hopes will be operated by about four hauliers, is due to begin on 1 June.

The shipping line's haulage business in Scotland will go out to tender later this year. Four hauliers currently work for Hapag-Lloyd in England and Wales: PE) and Nedlloyd-joint owned Roadways; Securicor's Omega Container Logistics; Taylor Barnard; and

Maritime Haulage which is based in the Isle of Grain.

Roadways general manager of operations Ian Lucas says: "Roadways would not tender uneconomic rates for any work."

John Williams, chief executive of Securicor's logistics division, says he acknowledges Hapag-Lloyd's difficulties and says that his company will try to work with the shipping line for "cost effectiveness".

Hauliers are caught up in shipping lines' efforts to cut haulage costs because of falling UN export volumes and declining imports. The European Commission—the Ell's policy body—is also attacking some of the shipping lines' privileges, hitting their longerterm prospects.


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