The commencement of International North South Transport Corridor (INSTC) will be flagged off by the Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi on April 13 from Mumbai. The beginning of multimodal transport services between India, Iran and CIS countries from April this year has been jointly promoted by the Ministry of commerce, export organisations and FFFAI. Sunil Kumar, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Commerce, Government of India informed, “To commemorate the 70th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between India and Russia the Prime Minister would flag off the first containerised shipment, to be transported via INSTC route. This route links India and Central Asia and Russia via Iran by saving significant amount of time.”

The 11th World Cargo Symposium 2017 opened at a remarkable note in Abu Dhabi. The symposium is meeting at a time of thoughtful optimism which is far too rare in the air cargo industry. After several years of virtually no growth, the industry is starting to see demand pick up. Freight volumes began to grow in the second half of 2016. And the momentum is carrying over into this year with January demand rising nearly seven per cent over the previous year. Alexandre de Juniac, Director General and CEO has shared a clear vision of how that historical role continues to manifest itself. “It is great to see such forward thinking at the highest levels of government on the strategic benefits of aviation to the national economy,” he adds.

Agility has opened the first temperature-controlled life sciences storage and handling facility in the Hyderabad Airport Zone. The company’s 6,000-square-foot Life Sciences Excellence Center (LSEC) at Rajiv Gandhi International Airport is strategically placed to serve pharma manufacturers in Hyderabad, Goa, Pune, Vishakhapatnam and Bangalore. The centre will provide conditioning, preparation and storage of pharmaceutical goods and operate as a control tower for Agility life sciences customers in India. The LSEC will house va-Q-tec’s inventory, perform quality checks, conditioning and preparation of containers, and box packaging for va-Q-tec’s products before the release of packaging for customers.

After recently completing 45 years of uninterrupted service to the Indian subcontinent, Ethiopian Airlines has announced that it will expand its India operations further by adding Ahmedabad to its network. Esayas Woldemariam Hailu, Managing Director (International Services), Ethiopian Airlines, said, “We are very happy to celebrate this milestone of 45 years uninterrupted service to Mumbai, which was one of our earliest destinations and is one of our strongest markets in Asia today. We have plans to expand our operations in India for cargo. We have finalised our preparation to launch freighter operation to Ahmedabad in the month of March 2017. We have contributed our part in forging closer investment, trade and people-to-people ties between Africa and India.” The airline is currently operating New Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Bengaluru. Hailu added, “We don’t have a specific date yet for the new service. But we know that we will be operating our brand-new Boeing 777 on this route that has a capacity of 100 tonnes.”

JSC RZD Logistics and Federation of Freight Forwarders’ Associations in India (FFFAI) have signed an agreement on strategic partnership aimed to coordinate efforts in development of the North-South ITC (International Transport Corridor). JSC RZD Logistics and FFFAI agreed to work together to expand the number of contacts with Russian and Indian freighters in order to attract the cargos to the North-South ITC. They are planning to develop Russian-Indian logistics cooperation as well. The signing of the agreement took place during the International Rail Business Forum ‘1520 Strategic Partnership: The Caspian Region’.

With the Government presenting the annual Budget, a roadmap has been set for the year. Industry insiders have called Budget 2017-18 well-intentioned and growth-oriented. On a cautionary note, they have also said that the real takeaways will only become apparent once it is put into implementation. The industry is confident with the government move of pushing infrastructure development and also looking into the intricacies of logistics sector such as multimodal transportation, identifying coastal connectivity, logistics parks, Greenfield ports, airports in tier II cities, to name a few. We bring you industry expert views.

Anjani Mandal, CEO and Co-founder, Fortigo Network, is quite satisfied with the direct and in-direct boosts such as (a) higher outlay on Highways; (b) support for MSMEs through a reduced income tax and (c) boosting money in hands of individuals through lower income tax. He believes this will boost consumption for the logistics industry in the future. “The continuing growth and stability in the economy as reflected by the positive macroeconomic indicators will get a further boost with the infusion of capital in infrastructure, boosting MSMEs post-tax profits (owing to the reduced Income Tax) as well as increased liquidity with the consumer for his spends (owing to reduced Income Tax),” he says. “As to the road transportation industry, any facet of infrastructure development or investment by businesses or an increase in consumption, boosts logistics sector growth. Three factors are positive news for a start-up like Fortigo Network: (a) getting a wider set of businesses to move into the organized sector; (b) the continued focus on encouraging digital payments and support to infrastructure for build-up of digital payments and (c) GST to be implemented in the current year,” he adds.

According to Ajay Khosla, DGM Delhi, Jaipur Golden Transport, “The government has set the tone for aggressive and progressive path by focusing on development of critical infrastructure to achieve expected economic growth. Logistics industry welcome these announcements, better and more road infrastructure will not reduce operational cost and reduce maintenance cost but also enhance fuel efficiency and speed of trucks. The proposed investment into National Highways will improve overall infrastructure and connectivity, making entire supply chain more proficient. Government also thrust on implementation of GST; this will not only ease tax process and omit on road delays and nuisances, result in faster and efficient trucking system.”

PC Sharma, CEO and whole time director, TCIEXPRESS, notes, “The budget allocation of Rs 39,61,354 crore on infrastructure development and of selected airports in Tier 2 & 3 cities will help us penetrate in strategic and remote locations, enhancing our services in those regions as well. The focus on infrastructure development in the budget will contribute towards the exponential growth of logistics industry, as it will help in robust operations and efficient deliveries, particularly for the express delivery sector. We are also optimistic about the timely implementation of GST, which was also mentioned in the budget.”

Expressing hope, Sarini Sachdeva, CEO, Aardour Worldwide Logistics says, “The announcement of Rs 39,61,354 crore on infrastructure development will help the logistics industry to grow much faster. Today, infrastructure forms the major reason that logistics industry is lagging behind.” “Moreover, for any country, air connectivity to undeserved and unserved regions could provide impetus to economic development and growth of such regions, and contribute to a more uniform and equitable growth in economic activity across the country. Per capita flights in India is about 0.08 compared with around 2.5 and three in the US and the UK, respectively. India has about 450 airports and airstrips but only 75 have scheduled operations, as per the recently unveiled national civil aviation policy,” she informs. “Around 66.5 per cent of India’s total air traffic comes from Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai, Kolkata and Hyderabad airports. These six cities would require new airports by 2025-26 and in some cases, much earlier. Currently, cargo from smaller airports fly to big cities. Once the smaller airports became viable the industries in Tier 2 and Tier 3 will also flourish,” Sachdeva adds.