Russian crisis leads to EU trailer glut...
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by Tim Maughan • A Belgian trailer manufacturer warns that trailer builders throughout Europe could go to the wall as German manufacturers dump cheap trailers on the market, blaming the Russian economic crisis.
Jan Verhaeghe, who owns Stevens Carrosserie, says German manufacturers have completed large numbers of trailers for Russian hauliers—but because of the economic crisis few of these orders have been taken up.
Nonetheless the Germans have continued to turn out trailers at the same rate, says Verhaeghe, leading to a pan-European glut. The rock-bottom price of these trailers could cripple the smaller manufacturers, he adds, and if they are to survive they must find a niche in the market.
Tony Hird, UK sales director of German-owned Krone Commercial Trailers, confirms that his company is still exporting trailers to Russia and the former Soviet Bloc countries from its German plants.
He says it is important to build "very simple" trailers at "competitive prices".
"The thing that we strongly believe in is that we have to make good quality products," says Hird. "Most hauliers are looking for standard trailers."
...and stranded drivers
• Up to 1,000 Russian truck drivers are gathering in French laybys because their country's economic collapse has left them stranded.
According to the International Transport Workers' Federation (ITF), the drivers have been told by their bosses to wait in France until they can find return loads to Russia.
The drivers have been arriving over the past month or so carrying a variety of Russian export goods, but they have found that French manufactur ers are unwilling to sell return loads for Russian roubles.
The French union Force Ouvrier has attempted to make contact with some of the drivers, who are scattered across the country in market squares and roadside parking areas, but says they are not interested.
ITF assistant general-secretary Graham Brothers says the drivers are "effectively abandoned" by their employers. "They must be living in their cabs," he adds. "How they art. buying food, nobody knows."