Bangkok--Jun 11--Spark Communications
- Company invests in new infrastructure -
TNT Express - the world's leading B2B express carrier - has announced today that it has taken significant steps to capitalise on an expanded European Union. Preparations include investments of ?11m in new linehaul connections, a new road hub, additional sortation facilities plus new vehicles and drivers.
TNT already has a more extensive express delivery road network in Europe than any of its competitors. Based on this robust infrastructure and on the disappearance of border controls, the company is launching sixteen new road linehaul connections between eight new EU member states on 17th May 2004.
Mike Ogle, Regional Director TNT Express Eastern Europe, Greece & Israel commented: "With 1,800 staff, 900 vehicles and 67 depots in the accession countries we already have well-established and profitable operations in this high-growth region, that's why a relatively modest expenditure of ?11m will be sufficient to provide our customers with new and better services in the enlarged EU."
With the removal of Customs clearance delays from the accession countries, TNT Express will be able to offer much improved international road transit times. Examples include: ท From Ostrava in the Czech Republic to Vilnius in Lithuania, journey times will be cut from 6 days to 2 days ท From Tallinn in Estonia to Warsaw in Poland journey times will be cut from 6 days to 2 days ท From Budapest in Hungary to Prague in the Czech Republic journey times will be cut from 4 days to 1 day
As well as offering customers shorter overall transit times between EU countries, TNT has capitalised on reduced delays at country borders to provide customers in the accession countries with later collections for exports and earlier deliveries of imports.
For example the linehaul truck bringing imports from Vienna in Austria to Ljubljana in Slovenia will now arrive at 0700 rather than 0900. Similarly the linehaul truck taking exports from Budapest in Hungary to Nuremberg in Germany will now depart at 2300 instead of 1900.
An additional 25 vehicles and 35 drivers will be added across the new EU countries to service the new linehaul connections - this represents over 25% of the total ?11m investment. TNT is also adding additional sortation capabilities at ten of its existing sites to process the increased flow of consignments travelling through the company's network.
Furthermore, a new ?2.7m state-of-the-art international road hub in the Polish capital Warsaw will open in 2005 to efficiently coordinate the flow of consignments throughout the new EU countries and to respond to the growth of activities in the area. The new sortation facility will further improve transit times and will be serviced by four additional international linehaul routings.
Mike Ogle adds: "Because TNT Express has the best road express delivery infrastructure in Europe, we are in a strong position to capitalise on the major opportunities provided by a population increase of 75 million people and to provide an improved service to our existing customers. We realised back in 2000 that we needed to make investments to capitalise on the potential new business provided by an enlarged free-trade zone."
TNT Express has been working closely with the Directorate General, Transport & Energy at the EU in order to benchmark the effectiveness of its investments. A resulting transport study from NEA - a leading independent transport research organisation - has identified two key areas of competitive advantage for the company. Firstly, the three countries that the report identifies as having the biggest growth potential over the next 16 year period - Bulgaria and Romania (due to join the EU in 2007) and Latvia - are countries where TNT already has a large market share for imports: 61%, 43% and 40% respectively.
Secondly, the report confirms that TNT's investments in two main hub sites in Vienna and Warsaw are strategically sound as they are positioned at the crossroads of the countries with the biggest growth potential.
Ogle added: "Thanks to our participation in the NEA study, we are confident that our planned air and road network investments match likely traffic lane growths over the next twenty years.
"Our measured approach in preparing TNT for the expanded EU has involved extensive communication with Customs officials, local authorities, finance ministries and the EU Commission in Brussels to ensure that any potential issues that may arise when operating in the expanded EU are addressed ahead of time.
We look forward to offering our worldwide customers more efficient services in Europe and to further strengthening our position within the market."
For further information please contact:
Tom Athey / Pannawat Khlongnakrob
Spark Communications Co., Ltd.
Tel 0 2653 2717-9
Fax 0 2653 2720
Email [email protected] or [email protected]
Notes to editors
1. TNT Express is the world's leading business to business express delivery company. The company delivers 3.3 million parcels, documents and pieces of freight a week to 200 countries using its network of 836 depots, hubs and sortation centres. TNT Express operates over 18,000 road vehicles and 43 aircraft and has the biggest door-to-door air and road express delivery infrastructure in Europe.
2. TNT Express employs 45,000 staff worldwide and is the first ever organisation to achieve global recognition as an Investor in People. The company reported sales in 2003 of ?4.251 billion. Profits of ?276 million earned by TNT Express in 2003 were higher by 12.2% than profits for 2002 (?246 million). The TNT Express website is: www.tnt.com.
3. TNT Express is a division of TPG N.V., the global provider of express, mail and logistics services which also operates TNT Logistics and Royal TPG Post. With headquarters in The Netherlands TPG employs 163,000 people in 64 countries and serves 200 countries. The company reported sales of ?11.9 billion in 2003, an increase of 0.7% over the previous year. TPG N.V. is listed on the Amsterdam, New York, London and Frankfurt stock exchanges. The TPG website is: www.tpg.com
4. The 10 countries joining the EU on 1st May are: Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia.
5. NEA Transport research and training is an independent organisation specialising in research, consultancy and training services in the field of traffic, transport, infrastructure and logistics. NEA's activities cover a broad field encompassing all the economic and social aspects of both passenger and freight transport, for all modes. The NEA website is www.nea.nl. The NEAC model and information system was developed by and maintained by NEA. The system contains data relating to present and future goods flows by mode and goods sort at regional level for Western and Eastern Europe. For more information about the model, please visit www.nea.nl/neac End.
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