Pluss Advanced Technologies (PLUSS) has received support SAMRIDH, a healthcare blended financing facility, to increase manufacturing capacity of its ‘temperature-controlled’ shipping containers for pharmaceuticals. PLUSS makes these containers from ‘phase change materials’ using the concept of thermal energy storage, to maintain inside-temperature without electricity at desired levels for up to 120 hours. The containers, called Celsure, are used in transport and storage of temperature sensitive pharma products, including vaccines. Through an innovative financing model, SAMRIDH leveraged philanthropic funds to help PLUSS raise commercial capital needed for the expansion of its business operations. SAMRIDH is supported by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and implemented by IPE Global. PLUSS provides Celsure containers that maintain precise temperature between 2 and 8°C, 15 and 25°C and -20°C, for up to five days. These solutions bring operational and cost efficiency in transport of temperature sensitive products. They are used by pharma, diagnostics and biotech companies to pack and transport temperature sensitive drugs, vaccines, test kits, clinical trial samples and other products that require a constant temperature to maintain their efficacy. With support from SAMRIDH, PLUSS will double the manufacturing capacity of Celsure boxes to 6,000 boxes per month and set up a conditioning facility in Hyderabad. This will assist pharma and biotech companies in making timely deliveries of covid-19 test kits, drugs and vaccines to remote areas where it is a considerable challenge to maintain the right cold-chain.

APM Terminals Pipavav has achieved a new milestone of loading 100th LPG rake within 10 months of operations through LPG Rake handling facility established jointly with Aegis Logistics Ltd. Since the rake handling capacity became operational in January 2021, the Port has provided a dedicated DFC compliant rail line for safer and faster evacuation of LPG there by reducing dependency on road movement. It is noteworthy that APM Terminals Pipavav is one of the few ports in India that has LPG rail siding within the port that can accommodate placement of full rake that carries approx. 1200 MT of LPG cargo which is equivalent to 66 Gas Tankers on road. The major importers of LPG are Indian Oil Corporation Limited, Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited, and Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited. Commenting on the breakthrough accomplishment, Jakob Friis Sorenson, MD, APM Terminals Pipavav said, “It is our endeavour to serve our customers in spirit of collaboration. Evacuating hundredth LPG rake in such a short span of time is testimony of our operational excellence. The technology advancement enables automatic rake handling reducing manual intervention thereby improving cargo turnaround time. With robust LPG demand envisaged, we believe that faster evacuation of LPG through rail route would provide a quick and an environment-friendly alternative for the Companies importing LPG.”

The GMR group, which has interests in the Airports, Power and Transport sector, is beefing up its airport business. The group’s airport business was the second-largest airport developer in the world pre-Covid, based on annual passengers. The airport business has an operational capacity of 94 million passengers right now, with almost as much capacity (85 million) under development. The expansion by the group, whose airports business has attracted investments from French operator Groupe ADP, is being driven by the Delhi and Hyderabad airports. GMR has fully tied up financing for its capital expenditure. This gives it a much-needed headstart against the Adani group, which, after a delay, has started taking over the airports it had won as part of the government’s latest privatisation drive. The Covid period, when traffic is lower and there is slack to expand terminals, is being utilised to ramp up capacity, and scale up businesses such as Duty Free. This is to ensure that when traffic recovers the group has both the capacity and the skill to earn revenues not only to recover the investments, but possibly make profits.

The largest container port in the UK is taking steps to address increasing cargo congestion but may begin turning incoming ships away if the problem persists. The Port of Felixstowe, which handles nearly 40% of all containers sent to and from the UK, is facing a massive backlog of ships as the site approaches its busiest time of year: the holiday season.The average shipping container that arrives at the port is currently spending more than nine days – two times the average “dwell time” of 2020 – sitting at Felixstowe. The logjam is in part, due to a shortage of drivers to operate heavy goods vehicles, known as HGV drivers, the outlet reported. The port’s management is reportedly working to ease the traffic but could restrict access to incoming vessels if the situation continues to deteriorate.

Volocopter’s electric heavy-lift drone VoloDrone conducted its first public flight at ITS World Congress 2021. Together with the international logistics leader DB Schenker, Volocopter, the pioneer of urban air mobility (UAM), demonstrated VoloDrone’s seamless integration into the logistics supply chain with an end-to-end cargo transport demonstration. The partners showed their significant progress together since DB Schenker became a strategic investor of Volocopter in early 2020. The 3-minute test flight took off at 3:02 p.m. at homePORT Hamburg and reached a maximum altitude of 22 meters. For this delivery simulation, the electric heavy-lift utility drone was equipped with a load-box in between its landing gear. First, the demonstration teams secured a Euro-pallet sized load to the box under the VoloDrone, followed by a smooth take-off. After this, the aircraft brought the payload to a DB Schenker Cargo Bike and landed safely. Once the payload was transferred successfully, the Cargo Bike delivered its cargo to the final destination under the area’s park deck, marking the completion of the entirely electric, multimodal last-mile delivery. “This first public VoloDrone flight is a strong sign for Volocopter´s leading position in the UAM industry. We are the only UAM company offering solutions for passengers and goods that are flying fully scaled and publicly around the world,” says Florian Reuter, Volocopter CEO. “Our VoloDrone will make existing logistics processes more robust, efficient, and sustainable. DB Schenker is an invaluable partner in our endeavor to untap the massive potential of our VoloDrone’s logistics use cases.”

Welcoming the launch of PM Gati Shakti National Master Plan for the multi-model connectivity, Dr A Sakthivel, President FIEO said that this will improve India’s productive capacity and global competitiveness with regard to not only manufacturing but also exports from India. To have all utility and infrastructure planning under an umbrella framework is unprecedented. For a long time, our infrastructure sector was witnessing inter-ministerial delays, multiple layers of stakeholders, and the culture of working in silos, said FIEO Chief. This has led to time and cost overruns and staggered pace for infrastructure led growth. The last mile connectivity is extremely important as it has a severe impact on the logistics cost though requiring not so substantial investment. Sakthivel said that bringing 16 Ministries on the digital platform for the integrated planning and consolidated implementation of infrastructure connectivity will be a game changer for the Indian economy. More important is the approach which can be equally applied to many other sectors where inter-ministerial close coordination and monitoring can lead to exponential growth. These kinds of master plans will not only attract global FDI but will make India the most preferred destination of investment globally, observed President, FIEO.

Union Minister of Commerce & Industry Piyush Goyal urged the heads of Export Promotion Councils (EPCs) to identify and name exporters whose products fail to meet international standards and are often rejected due to inferior quality. The Minister said the EPCs have not identified specific exporters hurting the reputation of ‘Made in India’ products in the world markets despite repeated reminders. “Quality will define the future of our exports,” he quipped. Goyal also asked EPC heads to take steps to increase exports to $450-$500 billion next year. Ahead of the finalisation of the new Foreign Trade Policy, Goyal, in a mid-term review meeting with EPCs, said India’s exports of $197 billion in the first half of FY2021-22, was on the “right track”. “Our exporters have made all of us Indians proud today,” said Goyal, setting the bar higher “if we can aim to scale $450-$500 billion exports next year,” according to a statement from the Ministry of Commerce & Industry.

The global shipping crisis that is causing deepening shortages and shutdowns in Britain’s shops and factories will last for as long as nine months, as giant vessels carrying Christmas goods start to queue in the English Channel to unload in Europe’s congested ports. A body representing British ports said that it expects the congestion affecting deliveries to millions of retailers and businesses to persist potentially until next summer as the shipping industry struggles with challenges from container shortages to a lack of lorry drivers to move cargo once it reaches quaysides. One major shipping line told that the delays, which are forcing vessels to anchor in clusters in the English Channel and North Sea, will have a knock-on effect for supplies of consumer goods and manufacturing components in the coming weeks and months – with a risk that up to 20 per cent of goods ordered for peak Christmas demand will not reach retailers in time.

V.O. Chidambaranar Port, offers a maximum draft of 14.20 Mts. to accommodate bulk carriers upto 95,000 DWT and Container vessels upto LOA of 300 metres. The Port’s two container terminals, with the capacity to handle 1.17 Million TEUs of Containers are well supported by 17 Container Freight Stations & one ICD. The terminals facilitate daily connectivity to Colombo and reaching further to the Far East, through its weekly mainline services. It is the fastest growing Port in Tamil Nadu, is growing hand in hand, along with the growth of Indian economy. This has resulted in a significant rise in the volume of freight moved by road. In VOC Port, 76 % of cargo is transited by road, 20% by conveyor, and 2% by pipeline and rail. More than 3000 trucks ply through the Port road connectivity everyday to transit the EXIM cargo, that are seamlessly connected to Tirunelveli and beyond in the South, and Madurai to cater to the northern hinterland, through NH138 and NH38. The 595 Km. long East Coast Road also connects Chennai. The Port is well connected to the Indian Railway network through the Meelavittan – Madurai broad-gauge line. This enables faster and effective cargo transfer to Dindigul, Karur, Bengaluru, Coimbatore and Chennai regions.

FedEx Express will invests more than SAR 1.5 billion in Saudi Arabia over the next 10 years to meet the country’s growing international shipping demands. This investment will reaffirm the company’s commitment to the country’s non-oil economic growth, in line with Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 goals, and the ‘National Industrial Development and Logistics Program’ which seeks to increase non-oil exports to more than SAR 1 trillion (approximately US $266 billion). Under Saudi Vision 2030, the country is committed to increasing its total air cargo capacity. With many years of experience, specialized services, and advanced technology solutions, FedEx is said to support the trade requirements of the healthcare, e-commerce, technology, energy, aerospace, automotive, and petrochemical sectors. FedEx Express has been facilitating trade in Saudi Arabia since 1994, offering international solutions and connectivity through local service providers, most recently through SAB Express.