Belgiums logistics sector still predicts modest growth

Logistics companies in Belgium are forecasting continued growth, despite flat conditions elsewhere in freight industry.
The biggest Belgian multinational logistics company, ABX Logistics, has recently won a contract with publishing organisation Boek.be which will involve distribution in Belgium. “We have won new international customers in the past year in areas such as healthcare, pharmaceuticals and textiles, which all have Belgian operations,” says a company spokesman. Another speciality is the tailor-made packages the company offers to the white and brown goods industries.
In addition, ABX plans to add capacity at two of its sites, Vilvoorde (Brussels) and Sint-Niklaas, this year. It has two other sites, at Antwerp and Tournai, which together make up ABX’s 110,000sq metres of storage capacity in Belgium, where the company employs 1,200 people.
In Brussels, ABX has a 15,000sq metre storage facility used for a wide variety of products, including white goods, while at Saint -Niklaas (with 36,500 sq metres of storage), four or five 64-tonne wagon loads arrive by rail at the warehouse every day from an Italian tile manufacturer for local distribution.
Brussels-based ABX specialises in road transport (both domestically and crossborder), air and sea transport and contract logistics. Within Belgium, it uses subcontractors and has up to 600 trucks on the road at any one time.
“ABX Logistics has become international in a short time since 1998, largely through acquisitions, to become one of the top 10 companies in transport and logistics in the world,” claims the spokesman. "It is Belgium’s number one and number five in Europe. Worldwide, the company has 1.5m metres of warehousing, 16,000 employees in 36 countries, and generated a turnover in 2000 of €2.9bn.
Express operator 30,000 sq metre facility — one of its ELCs (European logistics centres) — close to Brussels airport. The ELC acts as a call centre,
administration office and warehouse for semi-finished and finished goods for a range of industries. “We see good prospects for growth in 2002 in Belgium, both from new and existing customers,” says country marketing manager Xavier de Buck. This is against a background of the slight economic growth forecast for the Belgian economy this year.
DHL’s Belgian ELCs are clustered around Antwerp, Brussels and Hasselt. Customers include car and hi-tech manufacturers, pharmaceutical companies and the financial sector. For DHL’s international transport business, de Buck reports that traffic out of Belgium rose about 9% last year while inbound remained static.
Growth, albeit more modest than in previous years, is also forecast by Express. “In the five years up to 2001, we saw revenue and volumes double. We still expect double-digit growth this year, but it will not be in the region of the 20% of the past,” says Silvio Mestdagh, director fbr Belgium and Luxembourg.
“More than 70% of our business is with
Europe, followed by the Far East and the US, and the dominant Belgian customers are in the automotive and electronics industries. Around two-thirds of our activity is road-based and the rest airfocused. We contribute about 10% of volume to TNT’s European Express Centre in Liege,” he adds.
About 60% of the airlift used by TNT Express is provided by TNT Airways, which serves more than 50 destinations a day for the express operator. TNT Airways has a Belgian fleet of 11 BAe146s and four A300s, based at Liege, as well as Spanishbased aircraft. “TNT’s express network is planned to increase by about eight destinations over the next three years. depending on economic factors,” says Niky Terzakis, MD of TNT Airways.
The carrier has also been expanding with the October launch of a longhaul link to South Africa, flying Liege/Lagos! Johannesburg/Harare/Liege. “It is a twice weekly B747-400 service for general cargo and we hope to make it three a week soon and add Nairobi to the schedule,” he says.