Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Boost your EBIT by 10% in just a few months. Sounds like another empty promise, doesn't it? Maybe. We'll tell you it's magic. A sprinkle of fairy dust and poof. Your profits soar. But here's the deal. No fairy dust, just proven results. We've slashed late billing by 80%, recovered millions in missed revenues, and cut cash cycles by five days for some of the world's biggest forwarders. Real numbers, real impact, real fast. If you are ready to find out how we do it, visit www.entagos.cloud.
[00:00:35] Speaker B: You are listening to the Freight Buyers Club, a home for those interested in international trade, shipping, procurement, logistics and air freight. In fact, all things supply chain in the Americas, Asia and beyond.
[00:00:50] Speaker C: Hello, I'm Mike King and welcome to this episode of the Freight Buyers Club Insight produced with the support of Otegos Cloud. We are available on all podcast platforms, on YouTube and on www.afraidbuyersclub.com. please review, follow, subscribe. Bang that bell on YouTube. There's a lot of people joining this Freight Buyers Club, so. So please let's encourage more to do so today. I have have a brilliant guest coming up, but before I introduce her, I need to timestamp this because we are in a world of flux. We are doing this interview on 8 April. It's a raging news storm out there and most of you I'm sure you know, it's down to Liberation Day and it's down to Donald Trump and the repercussions of that.
[00:01:40] Speaker D: April 2, 2025 will forever be remembered as the day American industry was reborn, the day America's destiny was reclaimed and the day that we began to make America wealthy again.
Going to make it wealthy, good and wealthy.
For decades our country has been looted, pillaged, raped and plundered by nations near and far, both friend and foe alike.
[00:02:08] Speaker C: So as of 8th of April, we have in place layer after layer of US Tariffs on China specifically, but also now on global imports, the US which has created stock markets and global growth forecasts. And there's little end insight it would seem. I've done a full explainer on Trump's Trade War on YouTube so you can get all the details of each of those tariffs on there. It's also posted on LinkedIn, so please check that out. Trump has promised more tariffs on China today, so I've promised my next guest I won't get into the granular detail but of all of these tariffs because, well, by the time you're watching this or listening to this it could have changed again anyway, but she has had an amazing journey to her current position as Chief Executive Officer of DHL Global Forwarding Greater China. This has spanned leading roles at Kunar, Nagal and Dibishenko and covered around 10 countries but mostly in Asia with stints in Europe. That's been hair rapid ascend up the forwarding ladder and I'm delighted to welcome her today. Aditi Reskina, welcome to the Freight Buyers Club.
[00:03:17] Speaker B: Hi Mike, thanks for having me on your podcast. Looking forward to our discussion.
[00:03:21] Speaker C: Me too, me too. We met at TPM and it was great to catch up and you did a great stint on stage. So I'm hoping we can get some of some of those amazing insights that we heard there today. Now I'm really interested to hear about your career journey to China, which I guess is rather unique. But before we we get to that, we can't really start there because the global trading landscape has changed this past week. As I said, I'm not going to go through the finer details of each tariff because it will probably be out of date, maybe even before we've finished this conversation. But on a general level, can you give me a sense of what the reaction has been like in China, from businesses from exporters to all of this news from the US Administration and these tariff regimes? How's everyone reacting to this?
[00:04:11] Speaker B: You know, I think it's been a while in the making and everyone has been expecting some form of tariffs to come about or changes in US Trade policy. So most organizations have started preparing for this for a while on the ground. In China, of course you can imagine there are people that are concerned and then there are people that are at a waiting point of view because as you can imagine these are changing constantly from week to week and there are different aspects and components regarding the parts of which get tariffed and which not. So there's a bit of wait and see in that because we're still waiting for reciprocal to actions other markets. So that means other countries or other organizations to react to these tariffs to see what that would end up being. But for us at dhl, we've expected shifts in tariffs and trade policies that will impact US Trade flows and prepared accordingly. We're positioned to deal with the evolving situation to help our customers understand and adapt to the changes given our long term experience in facilitating trade across the countries of the globe. So we're present in over 220 countries and territories and think that helps us to help our customers along the journey.
[00:05:24] Speaker C: What sorts of questions are your clients with US business asking you. I mean there's so many moving pastors to some of these details and there's layer on layer of tariffs.
I'm guessing you know these aren't costs that exporters in China can swallow. So does this mean that US businesses will be picking up the tab for a lot of these tariffs?
[00:05:45] Speaker B: So you know, here are our customers reaching out with a range of questions, but they broadly fall into three different categories. So how do we adapt? How do we buy time and where do we pivot? So we start to go through each of these buckets. How do we adapt? So this is more in relation to their U.S. exports or exports to other markets that implement additional tariffs. We are utilizing our databases report systems to help customers stay updated on potential changes, but also assist them in modeling different scenarios for their inventory.
How do we buy time? That's another question. So as a large logistic organization, we provide various transportation services, including expedited express options that achieve cost reductions through just in time strategies that lower that can then lead come about from lower inventory levels. We also offer multimodal and multimodal freight offerings which could be in more cost effective transport modes coming in. We offer broad range of customer services and also foreign trade zones which allow customers to actually reposition inventory and help them manage the timing of duty payments for components of finished goods. And the last question is more about where do we pivot? So as customers adjust their supply chain in response to the shifts in demand or changes in manufacturing, our global coverage supports them in navigating these transitions. So we assist customers who are changing their sourcing strategies to incorporate different markets and countries.
[00:07:27] Speaker C: That's very interesting point on the free trade zone so you can park cargo and see how the land lies or see when's the optimal time to pay your tariff and understand the paperwork. Because I've spoken to quite a number of people on this podcast and one of the things they say is cargo's being shipped and the tariff due on it has changed while it's in transit. So that changed the landed cost of that product. So interested in how you're planning around that, can you give us a sense of how this affects short and long term planning in any more detail? And in fact how does this affect your expectations around the Chinese economy and freight demand this year?
[00:08:06] Speaker B: So you know, of course you've seen with short term there's been a lot of front yielding or a rush right now as soon as tariffs are announced in order to hit the cutoff date, right? So you see quite a bit of that coming about. You also saw that towards the end of last year, so you saw a lot of front loading. Now when this happens, it does mean that in order to balance out inventory levels then you might see, you know, a little bit slow down at a period of time until organization and market start, start to adjust to the reshaping of demand and reshaping of sourcing patterns. So I think organizations are planning for that and we're helping them plan for what would inventory levels look like if we front load at a particular point of time. And then it gives us a bit of time to see where the tariffs land and how that changing landscape is evolving. So yeah, it's evolving day to day, Mike. So, you know, we've got to be prepared for all scenarios which is keeping us all busy. So of course, you know, whilst you keep in mind that US China trade, international trade floors is about 2.6% of international overall trade flows. So there's still a large global market that's still left. And whilst of course you feel the impact from one trading partner, you then find ways of doing business with other trading partners in a stronger fashion than you traditionally have. If you think about the EV market and you see more and more European organizations partnering with Chinese EV makers or battery makers for their cars and technology. So you see these kind of patterns evolving or emerging that weren't traditionally part of of the manufacturing landscape in China before.
[00:09:46] Speaker C: Yeah, and I just make a reference there to my explainer actually, and there's a great chart at the end there from Ag Resource, Dan Bassey, big thanks to him. It tracks the change in relationship in who's the biggest trading partner for countries around the world over the last 20 years. And it's very striking how China's become the biggest trading partner where previously it was the US for most countries in the world. And I also discuss in this about if we have more US isolationism that does create vacuums, which China is actually really well placed to fill, whether that's on the trade or whether that's on the soft power side. Just coming back to some of these regulations, one other element of all of this, it really affects air cargo. It's the delaying of the removal of the de minimis exemption that originally came into place in February and then was cancelled because Customs and Borders Protection couldn't handle the volumes that were required. We saw all these parcels building up. Now this will now come in on May 2. Exports of less than $800 previously were exempt from duty. This is from Hong Kong and China. Now what we're hearing is this will probably result in either payment of 30% of declared value per package or a 25 degree fee per item starting May 2nd or a $50 per item fee starting June the first. This was a huge driver of air cargo markets last year. This is Temu, it's machine, it's Alibaba, it's Amazon. They're flying cargo direct into the US out of China. Huge driver of e commerce markets. We've heard on this podcast people have doubts about whether Customs and Border Protection will be able to manage this on the 2nd of May. What's your view on this and how are you advising your customers?
[00:11:34] Speaker B: So Mike, yes, we're actively involved in the air cargo sector relating to E commerce. It's been a massive driver for volumes out of China in the last two years. So we will continue to process inbound shipments in the US in accordance with the applicable customs rules at that point of time as we are continuously monitoring the situation with both our customers and us. Right. To see where are the areas where we can find we need to focus on. So if this deem minimus rule is actually implemented effectively and they're strict about it, it may actually create quite a bit of extra volume, volume workload and create processing delays at the destination. So with these short term disruptions likely possible, I think E commerce will still remain like a key driver of air cargo as businesses will adapt to these new requirements. We've seen that previously with other markets imposing tariffs on Chinese e commerce. You see it a slight dip when the uncertainty sets in. But with the overall level and the price point of that, we see the volumes then continue to grow. What we may also start seeing is a lot of these e commerce companies will shift their attention to other markets. So more of Inter Asia, Europe, a lot more of Middle East, Africa and Latin America. Will U.S. business continue for E commerce? Absolutely. But the other markets would also get a lot more attention. So we need to monitor the situation on the US policies to see whether it would lead to a broader distance of the US from the rest of the world and assess the potential long term effects not just on E commerce but on the overall air cargo trade. So we remain well positioned to manage this as we've been working with E commerce players for a while now.
[00:13:22] Speaker C: Okay, I want to come back to this more generally what all this means for freight buyers in the rest of 25 a little bit later. But first I'm really keen to know how how your journey to this very senior position in this key market which a lot of executive I've interviewed over years say it's really tough to operate in but you're doing a great job. How have you ended up in China in this position and what got you into this industry in the first place?
[00:13:48] Speaker B: Aditi so I think obviously I got into the industry by chance. I got into a management training program with DHL originally in Singapore. And you know, once you get into the industry and you start to understand the role we play in global trade and economy, honestly I was hooked and haven't looked back. It's taken me through three of the biggest players. So I started with DHL and then was Koonagal Dushenko and now back to DHL for this role. I did come back because I think it's one of the most exciting roles you could potentially have in the logistics market is to work in China. Know China had phase one where when the initial reforms came in and it started opening up to being the low cost manufacturing hub and I think we're sitting in China, it's a different dynamic. It's now moving to be the more industrial automation powerhouse world. So to me the excitement of going through that journey of how China is evolving is one of the key drivers of wanting to be here.
[00:14:51] Speaker C: Interesting. You've now worked in a whole bunch of countries in Asia and also in Europe as I mentioned earlier. How would you say that the business cultures across those countries vary. So in my own experience, definitely this is true.
The Netherlands for example, or the uk, it's so different to Thailand or Singapore or Indonesia. And I found China really tough myself when I've been working there as a journalist. What's your experience? It's all very different cultures for, for business.
[00:15:23] Speaker B: That's true. I, but I think that's also what makes it exciting. I think if you're able to adapt in any country and culture it makes you more resilient and culture plays such a big part in how we do business. And you mentioned the Netherlands and you mentioned Thailand, two countries that I've actually lived in. And you know, in the Netherlands you have a direct, you have a direct approach. You say what you mean upfront, very clear, you're very vocal about it. And that's a very different style in Thailand in terms of how you would necessarily use it. I think. You know, I found different ways. For example in Thailand, when I worked in Thailand, gamification helped a lot to have fun in the office. So you, which you had fun but you also achieve business KPI. And if I tried gamification of mms, I think they would look at me like I'd lost my mind. So I think culture, right?
[00:16:18] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:16:19] Speaker B: So, yeah, culture plays a big part and I think you have to observe that and you need to understand that piece if you truly want to be successful in a market is you need to start understanding the cultural piece as fast as you can. And I've lived in 10 countries and it's like a muscle. You train yourself to understand that this is what you need to do and you observe it and that's how you know you're more successful, is you start to understand our culture plays a piece of business.
[00:16:46] Speaker C: Aditi. So did China require any specific adaptations from you in terms of that culture? Well, maybe more generally, what's been the biggest challenge in China for you?
[00:16:56] Speaker B: Well, I think, you know, in China the language plays a big piece, right. And so whilst I know where it close to being fluent, I'm making quite a bit of effort in trying. And I think people appreciate the effort going into that piece. Right. It's about respecting the culture, it's about understanding what that means. And I think if you show anybody respect, and I've learned this, no matter where you live, if you show people the respect for their culture, for what they're doing, I think that helps you gain momentum in that particular country. So that's my key in China, is to try and learn as much about the culture. Now, the language actually tells you a lot about the history. Each character stands for a certain meaning. And when you start to understand more about the language, you also understand the cultural dimensions of what goes with it.
[00:17:42] Speaker C: You've moved up in, in seniority in DHL and all those other forwards as we've talked about. But as you've been progressing your journey, you've also been coping with some of the biggest disruptions we've ever seen to supply chains. Covid, the ever given threat of US port strikes, trade wars, actual wars, the closure of the Suez Canal. Now, now we've got Trump's tariffs. I've been covering this industry for 25 years and the first 20 have been compressed into the last five. Did you imagine in your first 10 years of your career that the last five would have been quite so dramatic? We had a lot of chaos.
[00:18:18] Speaker B: No, I mean, honestly, who would have thought ever given would happen? Right. And who would have predicted Covid and the impact that it had to overall the world and supply chains? But it also, I think, has made us more resilient. It's made us realize the connection between people and how resilient we are and how technology has helped us during these periods. So I think it's helped us progress in a certain way in terms of making us more connected and making us more adapting. Right. So it's built more resilience to the overall supply chain and shows that we can find solutions no matter what the situation is.
[00:18:54] Speaker C: You took on your current position heading up DHL Global Forward in China last summer. How would you say it's going? And can you give us a. A broad sense of the verticals DHL Global Forwarding is active in, in China and the size of your footprint, It's a pretty big part of the overall forwarding business, isn't it?
[00:19:14] Speaker B: Yes. So it's a big, you know, China is of course, one of the. Well, it is the largest export country in the world and if we look at Asia Pacific, we're about 40 to 50% of the revenue would be from China. In DGF, we cover, I think, of course, all the major cities, but we're in about 55 locations across China. We've got over 2,300 employees here, plus another thousand for the shared service centers. I think we've got about almost 160,000, you know, warehouse space for the forwarding part. So we're fully, really fully rounded. We're in every, every sector. So whether you say consumer retail or automotive technology, life science and healthcare, e commerce, industrial engineering, manufacturing, I think we've got it well rounded. Of course, you can see the new energy, e commerce, life science, healthcare and all the robotics being the key drivers or the focus in the China market right now. So that's been a big focus for us.
[00:20:17] Speaker C: And it's very easy to think that the whole of the global trade system is focused on the US or on the Trans Pacific market because, just because of the sheer amount of noise coming out of the White House. But you guys, presumably you're doing a lot of intra. Asia, Asia, Europe's a huge market. What can you give me a rough idea of where you focus your energy or how those markets compare?
[00:20:39] Speaker B: You're absolutely right, Mike. The US tends to dominate the headlines these days, but our effort is truly, truly, truly global. Whilst not going into really specific regional breakdowns, if you look last year in 2024, our F grade volumes grew by about 6.8% and this was largely driven for demand on Asia, Europe trade lanes. Our, our strategy is simply to follow the growth. So this means focusing on any trade lanes that are growing, whether that's transatlantic. Intra Asia, Middle East, Africa with the boom coming about, and Latin America we follow the business, we follow the growth.
[00:21:16] Speaker C: You guys, you've got your own EV center of Excellence in Shanghai covering integrated end to end logistics for EV products. This includes, I think, but please correct me if I'm wrong, it includes batteries, electric motors, charging infrastructure. China's a real leader on EV technology. For people who haven't been to China recently, can you explain just how advanced take up of this tech is and, and what the supply chains are like behind them?
[00:21:44] Speaker B: Absolutely. So this is potentially one of the most exciting things happening in the Chinese market right now. So I don't know if many people know but China only got into EV Automotive manufacturing in 2020 and today is the largest market for EV world. So China's EV and like plug in hybrid sales hit an all time high of about 11 million units in 2024 which cements its position as the number one world's largest EV market. It also operates the largest EV charging network in the world. And just in the middle of last year, in the middle of 2024 there were over 10 million stations across China which if you look at a year on year increase, just for half that year was about 56% year on year increase. So China also produces over 75% of the global EV batteries. So this makes China a clear leader in the market. If you look at the vehicles or batteries or charging components. For me what's also fascinating is pre kill Covid, you know, you pro potentially did not see a green like green license place. The green license place are the EV cars. Now if you driving Shanghai you see about 40% of the vehicles on the road have a green license plate. It's changed, you know, it's changed the smog levels in China. But also for me when you live in a big city the noise pollution goes down with more EV rainfalls on the street. So I think it helps not just business but also overall sustainability and, and lifestyle and living.
[00:23:24] Speaker C: And presumably these supply chains are really very integrated both on the inbound side. So it's I guess this is intra China inbound supply chains across those different EV products and then it's also a big export as well as you mentioned.
[00:23:40] Speaker B: That's right, that's right. It's both, you know, of course it's the largest, you know, the largest consumption of the sales has been domestic. But you see all these, whether it's the finished vehicles or the batteries going out, you see that export is also taking off quite a bit in the last few years. And you know Mike, if you put that into perspective, right, and you look at the traditional low cost manufacturing or you look at how large the tech manufacturing in China used to be. And let's take an example.
If you think about tech and the number of laptops that could fit into a container, so let's say on average, depending on the size of the packaging, et cetera, you could get 5,000 laptops into a container. You can get about three or four cars at max into a container. So think about a household, how many laptops you use, how many cars you use and what that does to actual capacity or containerized capacity for volume. So whilst you can see certain sectors are manufacturing in different countries of the world, China is manufacturing a different sort of production now. So batteries take up more space in a container than a laptop does. So we saw that export growth last year out of China was about 11%. So you see the supply chains evolving very differently and what that does to the overall container capacity.
[00:24:57] Speaker C: Yeah, interesting comparison between batteries and laptops because we always have this thing in freight where people talk about everything getting smaller, but then new products come along and they are bigger than the ones that used to drive volumes in some cases. What other verticals are you really looking to grow in China then? Aditi?
[00:25:15] Speaker B: So of course we will continue to do our traditional sectors, but you see a big focus for us on E commerce, renewables, electric vehicles, but also solar, wind energy, green hydrogen, what that does. We will focus a lot on technology, sustainability and innovation driven development sectors which look very promising with AI and robotics and how that plays in. And of course E commerce will continue to be a big driver as well as life science and healthcare which we're investing quite happily.
[00:25:46] Speaker C: The manufacturing in China. I think this is of particular relevance when we hear so much about bringing manufacturing home and reshoring. People talk about the demographic challenges facing China. It's an aging population, rise in labor costs. These things threaten its ability to be the factory of the world, which it's been for the last 20 odd years. We've discussed this previously about how China's building these huge advantages in robotics, in automation and in other technologies that maybe might be able to help it maintain its advantage against other possible producers around the world in the future. Can you explain a little bit more or maybe give us some examples of that in practice?
[00:26:28] Speaker B: Sure. I mean, Mike, let's be fair. China is not the only country in the world to face an aging population. I think what China has done though, it's put a plan in place to address this. So Starting back in 2021, China was already installing as Many robots factories per year as the rest of the world combined. In 2022 the government released a five year plan to be the leader in industrial automation. Now 2023 they released further guidelines for an action plan for implementing robotics plus application. And this was to accelerate the use of robotics in a variety of range of sectors be it manufacturing, agricultural, logistics, energy, healthcare, education and even aged care services.
Last year China took the top spot for robot density, overtaking Germany and Japan. And this is with having about 470 robots per thousand employees.
And this now takes us away from low cost manufacturing into that evolved industrial automation powerhouse. And I, I want to give you an example of a customer I visited a few months ago. And this is a large solar manufacturing site. One of the big guys now they, they're in the top five in the world largest solar companies. And this is just one of their sites. And now keep in mind, got multiple sites. So this site is completely net carbon zero, carbon neutral. It produces volumes for about 120,000 containers a year. So this is just one site, right? One site produces 120,000 containers a year and it's managed more or less with Automation with just 27 employees. 27 employees, 420,000 containers for this factory annually. And that's the level of automation that we're at. Right. I hadn't seen these panels are heavy and you watch them being manufactured by these machines move around the belt, but also then come down this conveyor belt and completely automate it and move into a container without, without a person moving a forklift or driving a forklift, not a program to get there. And that's kind of fascinating to watch. If you've been in this industry as long as, you know, over 20 years or so, you, you haven't seen that level of automation come in. So I think that's quite fascinating.
[00:29:02] Speaker C: I mean that, that creates questions about how other producers will compete with that, that type of integrated automated supply chain and ability to, to produce, I mean 120,000 TEU with that, that level of personnel is quite amazing. DHL produced a white paper called China plus X earlier this year. This year. And this is all, all about moving beyond China plus one to multi shoring strategies that build production, build supplier diversity and resilience, supply chain resilience. The, the idea of China plus one of course came from the, the geopolitical risk to producing just in China. That came from the first Trump administration when we saw these tariffs on China and producers were encouraged to find alternatives. So we saw Mexico, we saw Vietnam and India Attract a lot of new business. Obviously these countries are also now subject to these stinging tariffs. But how do you build resilience in this environment? And is China plus X this multi shoring, is that still a viable strategy, would you say?
[00:30:09] Speaker B: Okay, so you know, not that I'm biased Mike, but I would say, you know, next China will still be China.
But having said that, supply chain diversification will continue because companies prioritize resilience. Right. These decisions require years of planning, meaning changes won't happen overnight. So while tariffs are significant, there is just one part of the regulatory environment. So companies must evaluate overall total business costs, workforce skill levels, transportation infrastructure and a country's overall physical and digital infrastructure. So initiating these changes requires large investments. And we don't believe all companies will reverse strategies immediately. In fact, we see more companies thinking about how they make their supply chains more resilient and less dependent on tariffs. So. Or less dependent on a single sourcing country. Right. So resilience is the key and people will look at strategies to make sure that they're not handicapped in any form. Multishoring will continue to be a viable strategy just to make sure you are resilient with all the changes, be it regulatory tariffs.
Covid, you're just making your supply chain more resilient.
[00:31:27] Speaker C: And please do check out my explain it because I do talk about some of those countries that might be possible options if you're looking at tariff workarounds. They included low tariff countries actually like Brazil. But Northern Ireland's also quite an interesting option. There's a few others out there. So I just, just on that point Aditi, if I may, this talk about US manufacturing being reassured, what you're talking about the latest tech in China for the, for the source of industries that the US might want to create jobs in. It's all. It's going to be highly automated if you're bringing best practice in any way. Presumably.
[00:32:02] Speaker B: Yes. I mean I think if you partner with the right technology, robotic companies, etc. There's a lot of that that can be automated. And I think the level to which you do that is what creates efficiency in your overall business. That reduces costs, it brings about higher efficiency. So I think organizations need to consider that when you think about your overall strategy of where you want to manufacture, you want to look at the over effectiveness of the supply chain.
[00:32:29] Speaker C: Yeah. And you know what type of jobs you will create with this because there's not this old absolutely air bell type. That's not even the case in, you know, it might be the case in textiles in, in Cambodia. But it's not the case when you're talking about EVs in China. If that's the type of high tech business you want to reshore, whether that's Europe, whether that's the US it doesn't really matter.
[00:32:50] Speaker B: That's right. And you know, you need to look at the type of jobs that is generating. You also need to look at where you're sourcing from and what that manufacturing location means to you for the overall cost of bringing those components in. Right. So it's multiple pieces that you need to consider when you look at this.
[00:33:06] Speaker C: Thanks Aditi. This sort of brings me full circle. How does the new U.S. tariff regime affect how you're looking at the the rest of 2025? I presume that for products in the in the must have category, that is if you need a part for your factory and China is the only supplier of it, then people are just going to have to pay the extra cost. But where products aren't necessities, are we expecting a decline in freight demand on that trans Pacific route where we've already seen at least ocean freight soften or we've seen a little bump on air freight rates lately?
[00:33:39] Speaker B: So you're right on those aspects. You do see that with the uncertainties and the softening of demand, of course you'll see the fluctuations come about. The tariff regime may also encourage companies to reconsider their sources strategies. So businesses may look at alternative suppliers outside of China to avoid higher tariffs which could lead to a redistribution of freight demand to other regions or countries. This could also result in increased freight activity from all those alternative markets. So I think the logistics, you know, the logistics industry, it's dynamic. We at dhl, we got a great customers brokerage services team and we're trying to help our customers reroute these shipments. Look at how we can reduce duty impacts and keep trade flowing.
[00:34:23] Speaker C: As I mentioned, we've just seen a little bump in air freight prices as people try to get cargo in earlier ahead of the tariff regime. But we did see ocean freight front loading earlier this year. We had port strikes last October. We had expectations of them earlier this year and then we had quite a few unknowns around tariffs. Did some of your customers do a lot of front loading?
[00:34:44] Speaker B: Yes, we did see front building come about and of course when there's heightened extra activity it means it's followed by a period of softening in order to balance inventory levels off. I think people are watching how the changes in demand will go and trade flows will resume based on how the market lands. Given how this is evolving on a week to week basis.
[00:35:08] Speaker C: I did speak to a few people and they said they'd pause shipments as much as they possibly could. It's Trans Pacific contracting season on the ocean side. Are people a bit wary about committing major volumes? Is is that how that's going?
[00:35:21] Speaker B: I think everyone is, you know, on that front everyone is trying to assess or guess where it would land. Look at do we do long term contracts, do we do shorter term contracts in this period? See how the rate level and how the tariffs would land. I think everyone is trying different strategies at this point of time. There's so many depends on the sector or the industry that you're in and whether you're impacted by the tariffs are a big consideration as well in terms of how people are having these strategies.
[00:35:52] Speaker C: So it sounds like you're seeing opportunities in some of these challenges, maybe in other parts of the world. In the US have you got any more trade or Freight predictions for 2025 Aditi as we finish up.
[00:36:04] Speaker B: So for us, I mean we see the shift towards E commerce is going to continue driving demand for logistics services, especially in Asia's Pacific region, Middle East, Africa or Latin America.
We will see an increased emphasis of sustainability in logistics with companies investing in greener technologies and practices, be it electronic vehicles, the use of alternative fuels. And I think the last part that you will see a lot more of in our industry is the whole use of digital technology, be it AI, robotics, Internet of Things and blockchain in order to make supply chain visibility stronger but overall build resilience in the supply chain.
[00:36:48] Speaker C: Aditi Raskina, Chief Executive Officer at DHL Global Forwarding Greater China thanks for joining me today on the Freight Buyers Club. It's been a real pleasure.
[00:36:58] Speaker B: Thank you very much Mike.
[00:37:02] Speaker C: And big thanks also to Antigua's Cloud for supporting this episode, Karen Ball and Tom Matthews for making this production happen and you all for listening. Please follow and like wherever you found us because we have got loads more content coming your way. Goodbye.
