Shipping

by air

CARPENTERS Shipping and Ansett

International Air Freight have started a joint venture which pro vides a cheaper alternative in the air freight service. The venture gives Fiji businessmen and individuals access to an efficient air freight service to any des tination in the world, says Carpenters Shipping general manager Shiri Ram.

And Ram says the ultimate intention for Carpenters Shipping is to extend the service to cover the entire South Pacific island nations which Carpenters has been serving for as long as current gen erations can remember.

Navitalai Naisoro, Fiji’s permanent secretary for Trade and Commerce, hails the venture and says the service will promote Fiji’s new export-oriented eco nomic thrust. He elaborates that the new service will facilitate Fiji’s growing gar ment exports as the industry looks at expansion programmes which includes

the ability to swiftly supply seasonal

fashion orders.

“Carpenters has tapped into the Ansett worldwide consolidation service using Sydney as the hub to gain the be nefits of Ansett’s huge buying power with the international airlines,” says Naisoro. “Fiji citizens will now be able to choose from door to door courier service and consolidation services as well as the traditional direct but expensive air

freight service presently available.”

Ram says Carpenters Shipping and Air Cargo Services, which will be known as Carpair Cargo, is able to offer cheaper freight than the airlines because its con solidation services enables it to enjoy a break point. Freight of cargo through the airlines is dearer because they do not have consolidation services which force them to charge a minimum rate regard less of the sizes of packages. Whilst Car pair Cargo is a new venture the services it provides is not exactly new. Carpenters Shipping has been providing it for Fiji businessmen since 1975, but on a one way traffic to bring in imports. Ram says a year ago Carpenters Shipping decided to provide a two-way service to cater for the new demands of an export-oriented Fiji economy.

For a year its 15-year-old Nadi office has been involved in air freighting ex ports of fresh vegetables, ginger and fresh fish through its consolidation ser vices where it provides a cheaper alternative by hiring containers. But it has not been all-systems go because of insufficient volume and sometimes be cause of limited air freight space. Ram says air freight space out of Fiji is still very limited “mainly because we do not

have terminators. That’s when planes come to Nadi, stop and starts again from here. Instead flights are invariably en route elsewhere”.

“This new venture which we have started in Suva (on July 20 this year) is merely a link between Carpenters and Ansett Ansett Australia, Ansett New Zealand,” Ram says. “We have also been associated for many years with other couriers from Australia with worldwide bases like McGregor Sea and Air Freights Services and Air Express Inter national, which is an American outfit but

they’re very big.”

Ansett belongs to TNT, another worl dwide courier service multinational.

The joint venture has in effect brought together two multinationals and given them access into the market. The spin-off of their collective buying power is a cheaper air freight rate. “Economists have noted that as economies develop

they go through various phases,” says

Naisoro. “The first phase is generally natural resource based, mainly agricultu ral. The second phase is the develop ment of the manufacturing and indust rial sectors with the movement of em

ployment opportunties from the primary

sector towards the secondary or indust rial sector. The third phase, which is the

present experience of major metropoli

tan countries such as the US and Japan, involves a further transition to the ser vices sector. In fact the economies of Japan and the US are characterised by the increasing share and growth of the services and tertiary sector relative to the

secondary and primary sectors,

“The global economy in the future will not be characterised by the comparative advantage in manufacturing but in corn parative advantage in the services sector, It is the economy with the best de veloped and comparative service sector that will have the best developed interna tional comparative advantage. The effort

by the Carpenters/Ansett joint venture

in setting up a modern freight service facility is therefore a significant contribu tion to the country’s long term competi live position.”

The cheaper air freight rates, the col lective buying power of Carpenters and Ansett, the booming garment industry, the growth of Fiji’s exports, and the ac cess provided by the two partners’ worl dwide courier networks complete the checklist for a smooth takeoff. □

Nivaga on charter THE Fiji-owned inter-island vessel Niva ga has left Suva for the Cook Islands on a 12-month charter. The ship’s agents, Interpot Shipping Limited, told The Fiji Times newspaper the vessel will service the Cooks as an inter-island cargo and passenger ship.

Nivaga might have to be registered in the Cook Islands to avoid expensive Fiji shipping regulations which would re quire the vessel to have on board a first, second and third officer during services

beyond Fiji waters.

The ship was bought by JKS Holdings from the Government of Tuvalu last month for SUSIOO,OOO.

Stowaway bill

NEW Zealand immigration officials and a Tauranga shipping agency are in dis pute over two Tongan stowaways and who should pay their bill. The immigra tion department wrote to Shipping En terprises saying the company should pay SUS3SOO in airfares and other expenses incurred by the two youths alleged to have come off its ship, Amer Shanti.

But Shipping Enterprises insist the youths were found at least a kilometre from the ship and there was no proof they were aboard Amer Shanti. The agency said the ship was searched before she left Tonga. There were no stow aways found on board.