2007-12 FT Strategic Trade Routes Asia to Europe

8/14/2019 2007-12 FT Strategic Trade Routes Asia to Europe

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2 FINANCIAL TIMES MONDAY DECEMBER 10 2007

Strategic Trade Routes: Asia to Europe

Contributors

Robert WrightTransport Correspondent

Raphael MinderAsia Correspondent

Geoff DyerShanghai Correspondent

Joe Leahy Mumbai Correspondent

John BurtonSingapore Correspondent

Jamil AnderliniBeijing Correspondent

Miriam ElderReporter, Moscow Times

Andrew BaxterCommissioning Editor

Steven BirdDesigner

Katie CarniePicture Editor

For advertising details, contactChristoph Gerth, Tel +44(0)20 7873 3761, Fax +44(0)20 7873 3241, [email protected],cr your usual FT representative.

$19bn plan provides new threads for Silk Road

About 150km north of Dushanbe,the capital of Tajikistan, workerswere recently putting the finaltouches to a bridge that is part of a new stretch of road linking thecountry to Kyrgyzstan.

The construction work, whichstarted in late 2004, is testimonyto the e ffo r ts unde r way toupgrade landlocked Tajikistanspoor road system, which stillbears the marks of the lengthycivil war that followed the col-lapse of the Soviet Union.

Indeed, eight countries lastmonth signed a much more ambi-tious and broader agreement tospend $18.7bn on roads and rail-ways running through centralAs ia , t he reby r ev iv ing andexpanding the old Silk Road thatconnected China and Europe.

Even though the European

Union overtook the US this yearas the main destination for Chi-nese goods, less than 1 per centof the $1,000bn-plus of tradebetween Europe and Asia passesthrough central Asia, a region

o n ce a t t h e h e ar t o f t r ad ebetween the two continents.The agreement was seen as a

polit ical breakthrough in anoften splintered region, bringing together the central Asian coun-tries of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan,Tajikistan and Uzbekistan withtheir eastern neighbours Chinaand Mongolia, Afghanistan to thesouth, and their fellow formerSoviet republic of Azerbaijan tothe west. The eight countries aremembers of the Central AsiaRegional Economic Co-operation(Carec) programme.

The economic benefits of thetransport project are massive,according to its backers, and hav-ing a common political objectivewill help ensure the money getschannelled where it can bring the highest return.

Azil Gezen, a consultant work-ing on the project for the AsianDevelopment Bank, says: This is

no longer a patchwork, whereyou are building or adding some-thing here and there and perhapswasting money. This [agreement]gives real structure.

The modern version is not an

attempt to mirror the old SilkRoad, which was itself a series of roads and trails along which car-avans carried Chinas and centralAsias silks by camel towardsmedieval Europe. Instead, thetarget is to create six road-railcorridors, due to be finished by2018 (see map on Page 1) .

On the European side, therewill be corridors ending in Tur-key in the south and Russia inthe north. On the eastern side,the corridors will join theimproved road and rail networkthat China is already committedto providing to its poorer, west-ern provinces.

In fact, Beijing is expected toprovide a substantial amount of the overall $19bn financing, sincealmost a third of the investmentis expected to take place on Chi-nese soil. Russia, meanwhile, hasbeen invited to join the schemebut has yet to do so.

But a large part of the projectis also about adding or improving north-south routes that will con-nect into south Asia and the Mid-dle East. And while the newroads and railways should revive

central Asias importance in thetransit of goods, officials say abetter transport network isessential for some of the coun-tries to maintain their rate of

economic development, whichhas accelerated on the back of t he wor ldwide commodi t i esboom.

Oil-rich Kazakhstan, for exam-ple, has recently averaged annualgrowth of 10 per cent. Mr Gezenwarns: There is a risk of stifling the growth of some of these

countries if the transport systemcannot serve their needs.

The ADB is backing the plan,along with the European Bankfor Reconstruction and Develop-ment, the Islamic Development

Bank, the International MonetaryFund, the United Nations Devel-opment Programme, and theWorld Bank. Such multilateralinstitutions are expected to fund just under half the project.

Illustrating the push for moreinternational co-operation, thenew road being completed northof Dushanbe draws on expertiseand manpower from severalcountries.

The project has been master-minded by SMEC, an Australianconsult ing engineering firm,while construction has been inthe hands of Sinohydro of China.In fact, 120 Chinese workers havebeen brought in to build theroad. Many are machine opera-tors, working alongside 360 localswho are often assigned morebasic tasks.

But over the coming decade,the real challenge could come notso much from building such

infrastructure as from managing it efficiently. Even now, obstaclessuch as excessive and unpredict-able bureaucratic procedures atborder crossings can prove moreof a deterrent to travelling across

central Asia than poor rail orroad infrastructure, experts say.Haruya Koide, an infrastruc-

ture finance specialist working for the ADB, says: Constructing railways can be challenging because of the topography in aregion like this, but it is notrocket science. What is reallycritical is to then have good rail-way management, which can bea very difficult business.

S imil a r ly, some o f t he 80projects already earmarked willrequire genuine usage commit-ments from the countries to jus-tify the investment. A case inpoint cited by Mr Gezen is a raillink crossing Uzbekistan andKyrgyzstan into China. He says:This project could become veryattractive, provided that Chinacommits the tonnage. The traffichas to come from China. If youdont utilise the asset, it getsvery, very expensive.

Furthermore, despite the agree-ment signed last month, officialsremain wary about the possibil-ity of a dogfight when it willcome to deciding which of the 80projects should be given priority.

The risks were underlined in theEuropean Union, whose membernations spent years squabbling over how to allocate 20bn to 30trans-European networks, three-quarters of them involving railtransport.

Mr Gezen r ecogn ise s t ha tevery country will want theirproject first and that politicalrather than economic considera-tions might come into play.

But the hope is that, giventheir huge financial involvement,the multilateral institutions willat least control the overall direc-tion of the transport scheme,even if some governments try tobreak ranks.

As Mr Gezen says: We candecide wha t t o do wi th ou rmoney, but we have no way of telling a government what to dowith their money.

Milestones, Guest Column, Page 4

CENTRAL ASIA

Raphael Minder onaims to revive an old trade route with six

road and rail corridors

The real test is notso much buildingsuch infrastructureas managingit efficiently

Reality yet to match vision

C riss-crossing thevast terrain of Rus-sias heartland lies9,000km of railway,

directly linking the booming Chinese market with produc-ers and consumers in Europe8-10 time zones away.

Yet the Trans-SiberianRailway, pride of the Tsarswho built it and the Sovietswho expanded i t , suffersfrom a lack of investmentand the bureaucratic tanglesthat are a hallmark of doing business in Russia.

Even so, private rail opera-tors in Russia are keen totap into the railways poten-tial as a strategic alternativeto the increasingly crowdedshipping lanes that providethe cheapest and most relia-ble route for goods heading both east and west.

Rail is something thatcould be significantly prefer-ential over other types of transport, as its quite pre-cise, says Izi Karasu, direc-tor of logistics at Procter &Gamble in Russia. If theproducts get loaded andthere are no issues at theborder, you get the goods ingood time.

Industry analysts estimatethat the rail journey from

Asia to Europe through Rus-sia could cut transit time toless than half. It takes anaverage of 45 days to ferrygoods from Asia, throughthe Suez and Mediterraneanand on to European ports.The Trans-Siberian railwaycould, in theory, cut traveltime from Asian ports toFinland down to 15 days.

Boosted by annual GDPgrowth of 7 per cent, its cof-fers flush with windfall oilprofits , the Kremlin hasmade infrastructure a prior-ity this election year. Presi-dent Vladimir Putin hasgiven his political blessing to a huge reform programmeby Russian Railways, thestate monopoly known by itsRussian acronym RZD. Thiswill involve sinking 13,700bnroubles (more than $500bn)into the ageing rail networkto modernise tracks, build20,000km of lines and buy 1mfreight cars by 2030.

And capitalising on thecountrys situation betweenAsia and Europe is key.

Vladimir Yakunin, RZDspresident and a longtimeally of Mr Putin, said at arecent industry conferencethat integration into theglobal transport system willallow us to use our uniquegeographic position to builda transcontinental bridge.

Yet that integration is along way off, analysts say,pointing to a lack of co-ordi-nation along the valuechain, bureaucratic ineffi-

ciencies, failure to co-ordi-nate regional authoritiesinside Russia, and the factthat the much-touted invest-ment programme has yet tobe delivered.

We are of course aware of the fact that the Trans-Sibe-rian Railway might offer anattractive alternative, saysJoerg Schreiber, head of Mazdas Russia office. How-ever, practical implementa-tion meets many obstacles,such as weather conditions

and the availability of suita-ble rail carriages. Mazdaprefers to use shipping lanesfrom Asia, and moves goodswithin Russia by truck, headds.

Tariffs and customs proce-dures remain cumbersomeand unpredictable, withgoods waiting for borderclearance from two days toup to two weeks and beyond.Co-ordination is lacking between rail operators, portsand regional officials.

A planned joint venturebetween RZD and GermanysDeutsche Bahn to set up a50-50 owned logistics com-pany, totalling 1m of

investment, was due to besigned by the end of theyear, but may be delayed.

And while plans to extendthe Trans-Siberian railwayto South and North Korea,and even Japan, have long been mooted, no concreteprogress has been made.

There is a lack of co-ordi-nation for the entire chain,says Eduard Faritov, trans-port analyst at RenaissanceCapital, the Moscow-basedinvestment bank. If 18mcontainers are shippedyearly from Asia to Europe,the entire number of con-tainers inside Russia is one-tenth of that.

Inside Russia, priority forcargo and container capacityon the congested rail net-work is still given to heavyindustry and so-called strate-gic resources, especially coaland metals. The Trans-Sibe-rian already carries a greatdeal of freight and its notclear whether, with the cur-rent facilities, it can carrymore, says Lou Thompson,a former railways adviser atthe World Bank and privateindustry consultant. Thatwould involve pushing sometraffic aside in order to be amajor player in internationalcontainer traffic to competewith the sea route.

It is Russias private railoperators who are seizing the opportunities the Trans-Siberian hopes to provide.

Container flow is grow-ing, both in terms of import

and domestically, saysRaisa Parshina, chairman of DVTG, Russias third largestp r ivat e ope rato r, wh ichships timber, metals and oil.Shipping lines are ratherfull, so customers want todevelop all possible routes.

Rather than waiting forsupplies from containermonopoly TransContainer,which was spun off fromRZD this year, the companyis building its own containerp l a t form a t Zaba ika l sk -Manzhouli, the largest cross-ing point on the Sino-Rus-sian border. From start-upnext month it will handle50,000 containers a year.

DVTG is also building extra tracks at its bordercrossing with China, hoping to cut down on transfer timeas the trains switch fromChinese gauges to Russiastraditionally larger ones.

Yet, as Mr Faritov at Ren-aissance Capital notes:Among private companies,there is nobody with thesame lobbying power asRZD.

Indeed, DVTG has beenwaiting more than a year toreceive permission from themonopoly to bui ld t heremaining 30 metres of trackthat would connect its termi-nal line to RZDs main link.

The state understands[ the impor tance o f t heTrans-Siberian], says MsParshina. But from under-standing to realisation, thereare some difficulties.

TRANS-SIBERIAN RAILWAY

Miriam Elder onambitious plans toput cargo on track

Inside Russia,

priority is still givento heavy industryand so-calledstrategic resources

Heavy load: bulk cargoes are the mainstay of freight traffic on Russias railways Itar/Tass

The huge container ships of Denmarks Maersk Line have areason for feeling at home whenthey dock at several ports ontheir voyages between Europeand Asia.

APM Terminals, owned along with Maersk Line by DenmarksAP Mller-Maersk, owns at leastpart of the terminal at five of the eight ports used by thevessels.

The terminals at Xiamen in

China, Tanjung Pelepas inMalaysia, Algeciras in southernSpain, Rotterdam in theNetherlands, and Bremerhavenin Germany are part of APMTerminals enviableinternational collection.

Their location reflectsMaersks early recognition thatits vessels would need access togood port facilities at keypoints. The facilities areessential to enabling Maersk totrans-ship goods from its largestvessels to the many destinationslying away from its maineast-west routes.

What we offer is a kind of trade lane, says Kim Fejfer,APM Terminals chief executive.

However, with Maersk Lineset to make a second successiveloss this year and the terminalsbusiness still highly profitable,there is an increasing pushwithin the Group whichexpects to turn over $50bn thisyear to position APMTerminals as an independentbusiness.

It is already the worldsthird-largest such operator,behind Hong Kongs HutchisonPorts and Singapores PSA.

The first public sign of thedivisions repositioning came in2004, when it moved its

headquarters to The Hague fromCopenhagen, where Maersk Lineis based.

The terminals operator andMaersk Line put more waterbetween them in June, whenAPM Terminals began reporting directly to the Maersk Groupschief executive, rather than toan executive closely linked tothe shipping business.

Mr Fejfer says his companywants to continue to serve

Maersk Line as one of itsbiggest customers.But he adds: We want at the

same time to develop similarrelationships with other carriers.Today, we have what we couldcall strategic relationships with

other carriers. Suchprotestations provoke scepticalresponses from those outside theMaersk family, some of whompoint out that many of APMTerminals facilities continue tobe used exclusively by MaerskLine.

Among them is the terminalat Algeciras, which is a vitaltrans-shipment port for MaersksAsia-Europe services.

Mr Fejfer concedes that theline remains a strategiccustomer and partner.

We obviously like MaerskLines opinion on where theywill need terminal capacity, as

Ports provider races, asshipping line plods

we do with other carriers, hesays.

However, he rejectssuggestions that recentdevelopments by the division in

northern Europe have beendriven mainly by Maersk Linesrequirements.

APM Terminals has openedfacilities at Le Havre andDunkirk in France andZeebrugge in Belgium and isdeveloping one atWilhelmshaven, on GermanysNorth Sea coast.

All could be seen as especiallyuseful to Maersk Line becausethey are close to the sea, ratherthan up rivers, and accordinglyare especially well-suited toMaersks unusually large ships.

Mr Fejfer prefers to portraythe developments as part of astrategy of expanding capacityin Europe in any suitablelocation that becomes available,including some away fromtraditional trade centres. Manyof the continents containerports are nearly full to capacity.

Its vitally important insecuring the efficient flow of cargo and containers thatsufficient port capacity is built,Mr Fejfer says.

There are also locations inAsia where port infrastructurehas to be expanded, butdecision-making processes inEurope take somewhat longerthan in other places in theworld.

CORPORATE PROFILEAPM TERMINALS

Robert Wright on thechanging relationship between two Maersk sister companies

The decision-makingprocesses in Europetake somewhat longerthan in other placesin the world

Fejfer: trade lane

Clouds on the horizon

Build it and they will come isthe Chinese motto, but things donot always work out as planned.

In 2004, the Communist Partysecretary in a poor rural countyin the landlocked eastern prov-ince of Anhui decided to put hisdistrict on the map by building an airport. The county town of

around 30,000 people is located130km from Hefei, the nearestmajor city, and is endowed withunremarkable scenery, very littleindustry and limited economicprospects.

The local officials invited adeveloper from the prosperouseastern city of Hangzhou, winedand dined him and agreed tobuild an airport in a place wherenot even Chinas extensive railnetwork reaches.

The original budget of Rmb30msoon ballooned into Rmb100mbut finally the airport was com-pleted and the party secretaryand the developer flew into town,to great fanfare and a heros wel-come. That was the last flight inor out of the new airport, whichwas marked on Chinese maps fora couple of years but has nowbeen removed.

The international aviationindustry estimates that 48 newairports will be built in Chinaover the next decade, increasing the number from the current 130or so.

The supposed proliferation of inland airports has led to opti-mism among some analysts andinternational airlines offering freight services. They argue thatrising costs of transporting goodsoverland to ports on Chinas

coast will make air cargo fromthese airports much more viable,particularly to destinations suchas Europe.

Intels investment in the west-ern Chinese city of Chengdu isan often cited example of airfreight customers utilising new-ly-added facilities and services tosend their goods to market along the new Silk Road in the Sky.

But it is still a relatively rareexample and at present onlyKorean Air flies a cargo routefrom Chengdu directly to Europe,after Air China Cargo cancelledi ts a ll -f re ight rou te f romChengdu to Frankfurt because of

lack of demand.Exporting industries remainweak in Chinas underdevelopedwest and most products are stillcarried to coastal ci t ies andtransported by sea, according toLi Lei, an analyst at Citic JiantouSecurities.

The optimism in the sector hasbeen fuelled by double-digitgrowth in air freight demandfrom Chinas coastal boomtownsin recent years. Unfortunately,many analysts believe the exportbonanza is past its peak, leaving huge overcapacity in its wake.

The air freight business is notgrowing as rapidly as it has inthe past few year, when exportgrowth exceeded capacity andcompanies were able to chargedecent prices, says Mr Li.

Airlines saw the chance andrushed into the sector but nowthere is overcapacity and withfierce competition, high oil pricesand a global export slowdown,prices are falling and air freightoperators are making much lessprofit or even losing money.

Luf thansa Ca rgo r ecen t lyissued a report with a similarmessage, predicting that annualair freight growth in China willbe about 7.7 per cent until 2012,whereas the capacity to carryth is f r e igh t i s expec t ed to

expand significantly faster. Thiswill have further downward pres-su re on y i e ld , s ays DerekSadubin, chief operating officerat the Centre for Asia PacificAviation.

Just like the Japan boom-bustof the late 1980s, where marketssuch as Osaka saw massivedeclines in cargo yields, the signscould be looking ominous for theChina market.

B et we en 2 00 7 a nd 2 01 2Lufthansa expects air freight vol-umes from China to Europe togrow 6.3 per cent a year butimports coming the other waywill rise just 5.5 per cent, exacer-

bating trade imbalances and fur-ther undermining the economicsfor air freight carriers flying intoChina.

The clouds are gathering justas many airlines are ramping uptheir capacity, and Lufthansanow predicts possible overcapac-ity of 70 aircraft by 2012.

China Eastern Cargo Airlinessays it plans to expand freightcapacity by a large amount nextyear, even though it admits thatit and most of its competitors arelosing money on freight and thatcompetition is based on under-cutting rivals on price.

Jade Cargo, a joint venturebetween Lufthansa and Shen-zhen Airlines, also says it has big expansion plans.

Not long ago all the compa-nies in China were converting passenger aircraft or ordering new freight aircraft, says SuXiufeng of Jade Cargo. Theseaircraft will begin operating overthe next one to two years, whichwill make this market even morecrowded.

Of course, this profusion of new routes should provide airfreight customers with moreoptions and better prices over thenext few years. It is also likely tolead to consolidation within theindustry itself.

AIR FREIGHT FROM CHINA

Jamil Anderlini on worrying signs in theso-called Silk Road in the Sky from China


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FINANCIAL TIMES MONDAY DECEMBER 10 2007 3


Rising tide liftsport neighbours

In the early 2000s, there were pre-dictions of a three-way struggleto attract shipping among theMalay peninsulas main ports of Singapore, Port Klang and new-comer Tanjung Pelepas.

But the predictions provedwrong and all three have pros-pered because of increased trafficbetween Europe and Asia.

Singapore remains the worldslargest container trans-shipmenthub because of its position on theshipping routes that link Asiawith Europe.

Its main port facilities, oper-ated by wholly state-owned PSA,handled nearly 24m twenty-footequivalent units (TEUs) of con-tainers in 2006, accounting for afifth of the worlds total con-tainer transhipment throughput.PSA repor t ed a 13 pe r cent

annual rise in TEU volume to22.4m to October this year.

Singapores supremacy rests onits nearly 200-year history of han-dling international shipping traf-fic, which has made its opera-tions among the most efficient inthe world.

Nonetheless, it has to keep awary eye on its competitors tothe east Hong Kong and Shang-hai which hope to wrest theleadership crown from the city-state. Although PSAs rates arenot publically available, industryinsiders say it has been able toremain competitive because itsfees are lower than those chargedin Hong Kong, its biggest rival.

PSA has adopted a more prag-matic attitude to attracting ship-ping in recent years, after its twobiggest customers DenmarksMaersk and Taiwans EvergreenMarine defected to the newnearby Port of Tanjung Pelepas(PTP) in Malaysia in the early2000s.

PTP, which opened in 1999, wasestablished by the government of Mahathir Mohamad, the formerMalaysian prime minister, tochallenge Singapores domi-nance.

T he d ef ec ti on s l ed t o ashake-up in the PSA manage-ment and the hiring of Eddie Teh

from Hutchison Port Holdings,the Hong Kong port operator, asits new chief executive. Mr Tehhas been credited with adopting a more flexible approach towardsshipping lines.

The biggest challenge facing PSA now is a product of its suc-cess: dealing with increased con-gestion around the port.

PTP is south-east Asias fast-est-growing container port, butwhether it poses a long-termthreat to Singapore remainsuncertain. Its 4.7m TEU volumelast year was only a fifth of thatof Singapore. Although shipping analysts say its operations areless efficient than Singapores, itsrates are lower.

PTP has picked up businessbecause shipping l ines arespreading risk instead of depend-ing on a single port in a locale.Its happening all over the worldbecause it increases their bar-gaining power when negotiating with port operators, says a Sin-

gapore-based shipping consult-ant.

PTP is seen as being hamperedby the fact that its supporting transport infrastructure is lessextensive than that in neighbour-ing Singapore. But that maychange. The Malaysian govern-ment is planning to transformthe southern tip of Johor state,where PTP is located, into a spe-cial economic zone, the IskandarDevelopment Region.

However, similar efforts toboost the business of Port Klang,Malaysias biggest container portwith a 6.3m TEU volume lastyear, have encountered prob-lems. A year ago, the govern-ment opened an industrial andtrading zone for the port, whichis located near the Malaysiancapital of Kuala Lumpur.

But the projects Dubai part-ners pulled out, citing excessivegovernment interference in thezones management, while itsconstruction costs more thandoubled to $1.3bn from the origi-nal estimate.

The government has said itwill provide a loan to the PortKlang Authority, which hasdebts of $1bn, to save the project.

MALAYSIA AND SINGAPORE

John Burton on the

impact of prosperity on the peninsula

Logistics is key to inland shift

C hinas spectacular eco-nomic developmentrecord has largely beenconcen t ra t ed in two

areas the so-called Pearl RiverDelta just north of Hong Kong and the immediate hinterland of Shanghai.

That process is start ing tochange, however. Over the pastfew years, labour costs havestarted to rise sharply in thesecoastal areas, threatening thecompetitiveness of lower-marginoperators. Meanwhile, as theseregions have prospered, theyhave become less tolerant of thepollution rapid industrialisationhas created.

Although a few companieshave started to shift operationsoverseas, most of the companiesunder pressure are looking tomove elsewhere in China. Iwould say 90 per cent of Chinesecompanies would rather moveinland than move offshore, saysStephen Green, economist atStandard Chartered in Shanghai.

The big question for the devel-opment of China is where thecompanies move to. Many would

prefer to inch further inlandfrom their coastal operations tothe nex t p rovinces such a sAnhui , nea r Shangha i, andJiangxi in the south so they cantake advantage of the betterlogistics available on the coast.However, the government wouldprefer a large number of compa-nies jump further inland to moredeprived areas.

The key will be the quality of logistics available to them inthose more inland areas.

To encourage such invest-ments, the government has beenspending heavily on new roadinfrastructure in recent years.China has just over 45,000km of highways and the authoritiesplan to nearly double the total to85,000km by 2010. It is very simi-lar to the expansion of the USroad system in the 1950s, saysChris Lofgren, chief executive of Schne ide r Na t ional , t he UStrucking company that is estab-lishing an operation in China andrecently acquired the operating assets of a Chinese logistics com-pany.

Yet companies wishing tomove goods around by roadquickly face the dilemma that

there are no national trucking networks. Instead most of thecountry is dominated by small

trucking operations, often withold and inefficient vehicles, thatcove r on ly l imit ed r eg ions .Transportation costs are around16 per cent of total product costsin China, compared with around5 per cent in developed econo-mies.

The weak road logistics infra-structure is particularly difficultfor the retailers that are trying toestablish hypermarkets andsupermarkets in some of Chinasinland cities and require sophisti-cated, refrigerated trucks tobring food to their stores. Carre-four, for instance, has threestores in Urumqi in the far westof China, a five day drive fromBeijing. The consultancy ATKearney estimates China willneed to invest $100bn to build anefficient and safe food distribu-tion system.

In the eastern region of China the area that has Shanghai asits bridgehead companies arebecoming increasingly interestedin the Yangtze river as a meansof transport.

Between 2000 and 2005, theamount of cargo travelling on theriver nearly trebled and in 2006 itsurged a further 25 per cent to

900m tonnes. The authoritieshave announced plans to investRmb 16bn by 2010 on port con-

struction, dredging and otherinfrastructure improvements onthe river.

The Yangtze has developedinto a particularly strong logis-tics platform for the transport of bulk commodities. If you standon the margins of the river or itsmany tributaries of the lowerYangtze region these days, youwill see a constant procession of barges carrying coal, iron oreand cement the building blocksfor the countrys rapid industrial-isation.

It is also becoming increasinglyimportant to the auto industry.Ford has its China manufactur-ing base in Chongqing, 2,500kmfrom Shanghai, and several autocompanies have factories inWuhan, another important Yang-tze city. Components from over-seas and the Chinese coast travelup the river to the factories andcompleted cars travel down onbarges that carry 200 vehicles,compared with the eight cars atruck can carry.

The governments plan todevelop the Yangtze for transportwill greatly improve the linksbetween the inland logistics sys-tem and the ports along the river

with international shipping routes, says Xu Maozeng atChongqing Jiaotong University.

However, users of the river arenot without their complaints.Traffic can suffer from regula-tory delays, with several differ-ent local governments and ship-ping departments competing for jurisdi ction, while on certainstretches local state-owned com-panies exert a near-monopoly.Some experts believe the plannedinvestment will not be enough toprevent future problems. Theinland ports and their facilitiesare becoming a bottleneck, saysLiang Haicheng, a professor atWuhan Technical College of Communications.

Railways are the transportbranch that companies in Chinaare least optimistic about. Thesector is not short of investment the government plans to spendRmb 1,500bn from 2006 to 2010 onlocomotives and other rail invest-ments.

But the sector is dominated bythe Ministry of Railways, whichis viewed as one of the mostbureaucratic in the country.Companies say the huge num-bers of passengers who use railtravel to get around the countrymean that freight is often consid-ered a lesser priority.

CHINA

Geoff Dyer looks at transport issues in themore deprived regions

Going with the flow: a cargo ship transports cars on the Yangtze river between Fengjie and Wushan Getty Images


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4 FINANCIAL TIMES MONDAY DECEMBER 10 2007


After two decades, freight link receives green light

The occasional freight train clanksover a new bridge over the main rail-way line to Antwerp at the northernend of the Netherlands largest railyard, at Kijfhoek near Rotterdam,before entering a tunnel that leads toGermany.

The trains are among the first com-mercial services on the Betuwe Route,a 160km-long freight route that isintended to transform the ability of thePort of Rotterdam, the worlds third-busiest port and Europes busiest recip-ient of Asian trade, to handle onwardmovements by rail.

Betuwe is the most significant of many projects under way in northernEurope to help ports to cope with therapid surge in import traffic created byAsias trade boom. Kijfhoek marks thestart of the new section of the line,where it crosses the main line and

joins the existing tracks into the Portof Rotterdam.

However, the route is some way off handling the 10 trains an hour in eachdirection for which it was designed.Since its opening in June, the route hasbeen battling with problems created byits signalling system, the new Euro-

pean Rail Traffic Management System(ERTMS), intended eventually to

become a pan-European standard.Locomotives equipped to use the sys-tem have yet to receive full safetyclearance from the Dutch authoritiesand, at present, the main part of theroute from Kijfhoek to Zevenaar on theGerman border is allowed to handleonly one train in each direction at atime.

The signalling problem is only thelatest in the two-decade history of theBetuwe Route project, which hasweathered public opposition, soaring costs and multiple delays to reach thethreshold of being fully operational.

There remain concerns that the linemay never be able to earn back the4.7bn it has cost to build particu-larly because it competes with theheavily-used waterway system, whichis free to use.

However, Cees Tommel and SjoerdSjoerdsma, joint chief executives of Keyrail, the Dutch company in chargeof the route, remain confident. Theroute can soon capture 80 per cent of the Netherlands east-west rail freighttraffic, according to Mr Sjoerdsma.

Capacity on the neighbouring mixed-traffic routes, where freight trains haveto share track with a growing numberof passenger trains, is already tight.

Booming container trade with Asiawill be an important driver for the line,Mr Tommel says, although it will alsocarry cars, dry bulk products such asiron ore from South America and oil.

Keyrail is 50 per cent-owned by Pro-rail, the state-owned owner of the Neth-

erlands rail network, 35 per cent bythe Port of Rotterdam and 15 per centby the Port of Amsterdam.

The line, which has been under plan-ning or construction since 1990, wasoriginally conceived as an upgraded,freight-only alternative to the existing rail line through the NetherlandsBetuwe region. The modest costs origi-nally projected have doubled, largelybecause of the effects of public opposi-tion, which forced the builders to put18km of the line in expensive tunnels.

ERTMS has exacerbated the prob-lems. Unlike traditional signalling sys-tems designed and fitted by a singlecompany, ERTMS is based on a specifi-cation drawn up by the European Rail-ways Agency, a European Union body.

While the open specification preventsa single manufacturer from having astranglehold over the technology, therehave been problems proving that differ-ent manufacturers equipment willwork safely together.

The line will be able to work at fullcapacity only once ERTMS equipmenthas been approved for use on all thenecessary types of locomotive - aroundmid-2008.

Mr Tommel says the ERTMS systemwill eventually give the Betuwe Routeadvantages, when i t is operating Europe-wide. But he admits: Its veryhard to implement it when youre thefirst mover and user and you have tosolve all the problems.

BETUWE ROUTE

Robert Wright on thecomplicated birth of a 160km rail project linking Rotterdam with Germany

New milestones onthe old Silk Road

Baron Ferdinand vonRichthofen, the Germanhistorian and geographer,coined the expressionSilk Road, or SilkRoute, ( Seidenstrasse ) 130years ago to designate thewell-worn path betweenChina and the west viaDamascus.

He chose silk as symbolicof the exotic and highlyprized goods China allowedto flow from its centres tobarbarian lands.

Today, no singlecommodity could claimexclusive naming rights.The new Silk Road shorthand for therevitalised trade betweenthe Middle East and China carries steel, telecomsequipment, oil, humans andfinancial capital, and more

besides.The trade flows both

ways are driven by theGulfs appetite forinfrastructure, agriculture,education, healthcare andinformation technology, aswell as Chinas thirst forMiddle Eastern oil andcapital.

How wide is thismetaphorical roadway?Trade flows between theMiddle East and China lastyear totalled $69bn, up from$6bn in 1995. In 2000, therewere only seven directflights a week from the sixArab states in the Gulf Co-operation Council toChina. Today, there are 50.

Trade and investmentbetween the two regionsreceives considerablecoverage in newspapercolumns: Chinas Sinopecinvests as much as $100bnin Iran to help secure anenergy supply; DamacHolding is building a $2.7bnresidential, office andleisure complex in Tianjin,China.

These are long-term

strategic investments, not

mere portfolio plays.There is more to come.China is expected toaccount for 50 per cent of the total increase in globaldemand over the next 15years and is predicted tohave $1,000bn of infrastructure needs overthe next five years.

Saudi Arabiasinfrastructure needs overthe next 10 years are put at$650bn.

Whereas the old SilkRoad traditionally ended atDamascus, its newnamesake is beginning tobreak trail into NorthAfrica and beyond, arelationship known as Mena(Middle East and NorthAfrica). Again, the growthof direct flights between theregions is a tell-tale sign. In2000, there were 293 directflights a week from theMiddle East to Africa; today

there are 554.As global demand for

commodities continues torise, the world has awokento Africas rich naturalresources.

Private capital flows tosub-Saharan Africa are stilldwarfed by those to regionssuch as Asia, but havetrebled since 2003.

According to InternationalMonetary Fund statistics,total gross private flows in2006 amounted to about$45bn almost 6 per cent of Africas gross domesticproduct up from about$9bn in 2000.

Dubai, which was neverpart of the old Silk Road, istoday hard at workpositioning itself as the key

junction of the new version.The opening of the JebelAli freeport in 1979,followed by thediversification of Dubaiseconomy into such areas astourism and telecoms, hasmade many, if not all, roadslead to Dubai.

The desire for a concreteoverland route between

Asia and Europe (and

Africa) is very real.Overland options, such asthe Trans-Siberian Railway(TSR), have existed formany years, but still moveonly a tiny fraction of cargo.

A much-discussed IronSilk Road, running fromKorea through North Koreato link up with the TSR,could, it is argued, makegood advantage of SouthKoreas ports.

Meanwhile, China isconstructing 12 highways tolink its western Xinjiang Province with Central Asia.These could one day linkup with the UNs AsianHighway Network,connecting 32 Asiancountries with Europe.

Last month, members of the Central Asia RegionalEconomic Co-operation(Carec) programme agreedto an $18.7bn plan,

supported by the AsianDevelopment Bank, toimprove Central Asiasnetwork of roads, airportsand railway lines, withthe hope of creating a routefor trade between Europeand Asia.

Even in the days of theold Silk Road, some goodswere too bulky or heavy totransport overland. So it istoday. Until container shipsare replaced by direct oilpipelines, or equivalents,there will always be a rolefor shipping routes.

Whether these willcontinue to run throughSingapore and the Straits of Malacca and the Suez Canalor new, shorter routesthrough an ice-free ArcticSea that would linknorth-east Asia withnorthern Europe, only timeand climate change will tell.

In the meantime, the flowof human and financialcapital will continue toreshape the economic world.

Dominic Barton is chairmanof McKinsey, Asia

Guest ColumnDOMINIC BARTON

Hubs are nub of the issueF

or a direct indicationo f t he p re mi umattached to efficient-ly-run ports in India,

one need look no furtherthan the recent stock marketlisting of Mundra Port andSpecial Economic Zone.

The port, Indias largestprivately-owned facility, isbeing developed in Gujarat,western India by the Adanigroup. Shares in the portmore than doubled on theirtrading debut in Mumbai,and the companys initialpublic offering was morethan 100 times subscribed.

The reason for the inves-tor enthusiasm is simple.Indias ports are chronicallyoverloaded and there is notenough new capacity of thetype being built at Mundrato alleviate the problem inthe foreseeable future.

Shipping lines delivering con taine r s t o Ind ia a r eforced to choose whetherpotentially to spend dayswaiting at its main con-gested deep draft ports or toopt for trans-shipment hubs,such as Colombo or Singa-pore. From these hubs, cargocan be loaded on to feedervessels, which attract lowerport fees and can dock atsmaller facilities.

In about six years, thecapacity of Indias portsneeds to double and that, Ithink, is a big challenge,says Amit Desai, executivedirector of Mundra Port.The new capacity currentlybeing tendered isa tinypart of this total.

Indias bigger ports han-

dled 5.4m containers in thefinancial year to March, withtotal volume rising at a com-pound annual rate of 14 percent over the past five years.

Efficiency has improvedradically from the bad olddays of the mid-1980s, whena ship could wallow for anaverage 12 days in an Indianharbour waiting to beunloaded. But India, with anaverage ship turnaroundtime today of 3.5 days, stillbadly lags east Asias aver-age of 13 hours. In Hong Kong, the figure is as low as10 hours.

The main port is the bus-tling Jawaharlal Nehru Port(JNP), a short boat r ideacross the bay from Mumbai,India's financial capital. Theport is a showcase of foreigninvestment the two con-tainer terminals at the portare operated by mainly for-eign-owned companies andare fitted out with modernequipment and are as effi-cient as that in many Euro-pean ports.

But JNP, which handled3.3m 20ft equivalent units(TEUs) last year, is operat-ing at overcapacity, meaning it takes only one hitch tocause significant delays. MrDesai says ports in India onaverage operate at 91 to 92per cent capacity. Being aseasonal business, portsshould operate at closer to 70per cent so that they do notbecome overloaded during peak times.

Capacity utilisation of more than 70 per cent willlead to either ships waiting

at anchorage or chokedbackyards on ports, which iswhat we are in fact seeing atmost ports, says Mr Desai.

He says the country islikely to handle 750m tonnesof cargo this year. Thisimplies that it needs 125m to150m tonnes of new capacity

just to bring the utilisationrate down to levels thatwould reduce the risk of con-gestion.

To reduce capacity utilisa-tion to acceptable levels andto cater for future growth,some discussion papers pos-tulate that India will need atotal of 1.5bn tonnes of han-

dling capacity by 2013-14,double todays level.

Yet new capacity being tendered for construction isonly a fraction of what isexpected to be needed. Afourth terminal at JNP, thatwas meant to increase capac-ity by an estimated 50 percent, has been affected bydelays.

The consequence for ship-ping lines is that trans-ship-ment to Indian ports fromhubs such a s Co lombo ,Dubai and Singapore islikely to continue. Indeed,Colombo, in anticipation of

this trend, is adding newtrans-shipment capacity.

An estimated 30 per centof Indias container traffic ismoved through t rans -shipment, either from inter-national hubs such asColombo or from mainlineships docking at large Indianports and using feeder shipsto distribute their cargo else-where.

Anil Devli, chief executiveofficer of Shreyas Shipping and Logistics, says cost is akey issue in transhipping. Amainline vessel faces portcosts of up to about $140,000a day in India while a feedervessel costs about 10 percent of this.

Typically, a mainline ves-s el m ig ht s to p o ff a tColombo or a big Indian portand then offload on to feedervessels smaller loads of cargo bound for other desti-nations in the country.

Colombo is convenient fortrans-shipping to Indiabecause of its location on thesignificant shipping globalroutes while Singapore isoften preferred because of itsrole as a large low-cost hub.But Mr Devli says Mundra isalso helping to change thepicture.

As the port completes itsexpansion, it will become atrans-shipment point formore cargo, helping torelieve some of the pressureon JNP and giving shipping lines more options.

Mundra has definitelyhelped. We are doing a lot of trans-shipment of Karachicargo into Mundra, he says.

INDIA

Joe Leahy on thechoices facing shippers delivering containers tooverloaded ports

Trans-shipment toIndian ports fromColombo, Dubaiand Singapore islikely to continue

Full to bursting: a worker watches a container being loaded at the bustling Jawaharlal Nehru port near Mumbai Bloomberg

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2007-12 FT Strategic Trade Routes Asia to Europe