South Africa had performed the worst of all developing and developed countries in terms of cost increases in the importation of containers from 2007 to 2010, said Barloworld Logistics solution development head Johan Dekker on Tuesday.
Discussing the results from the ninth annual Barloworld Logistics supplychainforesight survey, he said that the cost of importing a container into South Africa jumped from $1 195 in 2007, to $1 807 in 2010. Exporting a container increased from $1 087 to $1 531.
This compared with Russia, where the cost of importing and exporting a container came to $1 850 in 2010, up from $1 750 in 2007.
Nigeria was much cheaper than South Africa, at $1 440 to import and $1 263 to export a container in 2010, up from $1 047 and $1 026 respectively in 2007.
In India it cost less than $1 000 to import and export a container last year, as well as in China and Germany.
Brazil, however, was also rather expensive, at $1 440 to import a container in 2010, and $1 540 to export a container.
Dekker said it was possible to speculate that the reasons for the rising costs in South Africa were failing infrastructure, maintenance neglect and capacity constraints.
Infrastructure was again a big feature of the Barloworld survey, conducted by Frost & Sullivan.
Just fewer than 80% of the 353 respondents indicated that they move less than 10% of their goods by rail.
Dekker said it should be taken into account that Transnet specialised in bulk goods, which meant that rail was not suited to all type of goods transported in South Africa, but added that it still indicated that the appetite for rail transport existed.
While 4% of respondents indicating that they moved more than 50% of their goods by rail, 17% indicated that they would move more than 50% of their goods by rail if they believed that they were able to do so efficiently.
Just fewer than 60% of respondents said that their industries had a “significant need” for additional rail capacity.
Dekker added that 60% of respondents expected increases in their freight volumes in 2011, but noted that most of this will go to the road freight sector. Only 25% of increases was allocated to rail.
The supplychainforesight survey also questioned respondents on their objectives for the year, with 51% indicating that their top objective was to increase service levels to customers. This was followed by the lowering of procurement costs at number two, and improving communication with customers as the number three objective.
The top challenges were implementing efficient planning and forecasting tools, the existence of waste and inefficiencies across the supply chain, and optimising the distribution network.
Around 70% of respondents also indicated that a lack of skills was hampering South Africa economically against its competitors.
Green targets did not feature too strongly among respondents, with 50% indicating that that were not aware of their companies’ emission reduction targets, or that their companies did have such targets.
