How Will the Sanctions Change Transport And Logistics Market In Russia

Aivars Taurins, Regional Director of Stena Line in Russia, the Baltic States and the CIS, tells about possible impact of sanctions on transport and logistics market of Russia, as well as about freight market situation and implications of new environmental standards in the Baltic Sea.

– How do you assess the impact of sanctions on the transport and logistics market of Russia? Do you predict whether there will be an increase or decrease in the transport of containers, Ro-Ro cargo through Russian seaports in this situation?

– I believe in a situation of limited imports as a result of EU and USA sanctions, including entry of dual-purpose products into Russia, or restrictions on the import of certain food products in Russia, some part of the cargo flow will be excluded out of the business now. Substitution of imported goods with their own production – it is not a momentary process. Therefore there will be switching from one trade to another; some routes (trade routes or flow) will be replaced with another. It has already been announced about the substitution of the current shortage of some food products with some other imported goods. Thus, I can say, a change of suppliers will happen, but there will not be a  sudden change in the total turnover.

The total amount of cargo flow may change a little but it depends on the general purchasing power in the economy. The flow will increase and decrease in different areas but in general the situation will be balanced.

Statistics data is showing the total volume of traffic at seaports does not change at all, in fact we have seen an increase. As this is the case then  there isn’t any free capacity – no noticeable change in traffic.

Changes in the market conditions will be: Turkey has increased in cargo volume, the Stena Sealine route on the Black Sea (Ilyichevsk–Haydarpasa) works well, with growth of 20% in general, and in the south direction it is showing 60% growth, according to operational data.

Accumulated data from the beginning of the year shows an increase in traffic by 18%.

On the Baltic Sea sector accumulated data shows growth of 13.5% from the beginning of the year compared with the same period in 2013. There are several reasons for the growth-  we added two additional roundtrips: one is on the route Ventspils (Latvia) –  Nynäshamn (Sweden).  There are 6 roundtrips per week now with a departure on a Sunday morning from Ventspils to Nynäshamn that is very convenient for picking up cargo at the weekend  and the second additional roundtrip is to  Travemünde in Germany from Latvia (from Liepaja port there are  5 calls per week now).

Source: http://en.portnews.ru/comments/1837/

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