Overborder trucking in the Southern African region
Tanya Haumann initiates expansion of a. hartrodt South Africa in Johannesburg.
While this week South Africa wants to score at the BRICS Summit in Johannesburg as a gateway to a growing regional market, a. hartrodt South Africa is already concretely developing new business: Since August 14, 2023, the international freight forwarder has a department for regional cross-border trucking in Johannesburg. Tanya Haumann, as Overborder Trucking Controller, brings 15 years of experience to the development of the cross-border product. "Our focus is to build up and expand cargo volumes," explains Grant Barnard, Managing Director of a. hartrodt South Africa.
Mines in Botswana need machinery from South Africa...
"The intra-Africa business is very much driven by exports from South Africa," Grant Barnard says. As an example, he mentions mines in Botswana that require South African machinery for their operations. Among other things, a. hartrodt transports this from Cape Town to its own warehouse in Johannesburg, where it is consolidated and taken to a bonded warehouse in Gaborone. "There, we take care of customs clearance for fast last-mile delivery," he says.
...and ship bulk cargo through South African ports
Tanya Haumann is familiar with two-way truck transports – outbound project cargo, return bulk commodities such as manganese or ferroalloys. "Large quantities of these are transported from mines to South African ports such as Durban or Gqeberha (Port Elizabeth)," she explains. She expects "excellent development opportunities" from the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) with 54 countries. The AfCFTA aims to increase intra-African trade "significantly" and build regional value chains. Tanya Haumann is also pursuing this goal with "customized and well-priced door-to-door solutions" – in the next step, for example, with the mining country Zambia.
Up to now, a. hartrodt has mainly offered services for sea freight with operations in Cape Town and air freight in Johannesburg. Grant Barnard names Europe as the most important market (sea freight: 52 percent of all inbound and outbound shipments / air freight: 80 percent), followed by China (25 / 5 percent).