What's the truth about our industry's future?

State-of-the-Logistics-Industry
Although I am quietly confident of an eventual pickup, the numbers appear to be telling another story. the UAE has taken delivery of over over a half million sq. meters of warehouse space in 2009 alone with countless 000's more to come in the foreseeable future which accounts for a lot of racking that needs to be filled. Unfortunately, Dubai World has stopped sharing their Port Throughput numbers with various publications for reasons unknown so getting a 'feel' of the volumes inbound from the Far East, traditionally the biggest exporter to this region cannot be gauged. Market Handling and Storage rates per cbm/day have plummeted over the past 6 months with major players resorting to offering 90 days free time just to get their still virgin racks to be filled. To add to this, Shipbuilding and Leasing is in dire straits with over committed Shipping Lines regretting their over zealous order-books where by some estimates, there are over 2,000 vessels standing at outer anchorage in the various global hotspots for leasing, most notably Singapore and Hong Kong. In the UAE, traditional trading groups that heretofore had had nothing to do with Logistics naturally saw the opportunity to expand and invest 100's of millions of dollars in this erstewhile golden egg laying goose.

Rebound
Rebound is a buzzword which is very popular and everyone throws it around these days. What does it mean - that after a certain date everything will be hunky dory as it was before and we will be back to normal the good old days. No Way - rebound does not mean rewind ! In the Middle East particularly Dubai is placed in a very unique position, it can today grasp the situation and provide singular facilities to Logistics industry which will make it thrive. Think about it this way when Dubai had decided to make the Jebel Ali Port some decades back and it was deemed to be a loser then now it is the backbone of its trade growth. It had taken advantage of the situation. The year 2010 certainly will be of better economic times but it will benefit Logistics players who during this time have learnt their lesson, adapted themselves, strategized their business models, new business ideas have been devised to meet new challenges, better efficiences have been implemented, time & effort has been spent actively today to tune staff to meet tougher challenges, moulded themselves to suit new market conditions, learnt their core competencies in and out etc. These companies will leap frog and succeed. This is sure. Others which are waiting for the rebound, will just wait and watch as the world flies by.

Some facts abt the industry.
It's evident, the economic slowdown has left a deep impact on the region's trade out of which the Industry is presently lying low and has not much to offer. Prior to the credit crunch we had a better scenario, inspite of the numerous logistic companies operating out of the region and everyone had plenty fish to catch. But once the economic downturn took its toll, resulted in a price war between the market players which boiled down to low profits and as a result we can see lot of business organizations taking measures to control cost, sustain their businesses and to retain their market share by beefing up activity - is the order of the day. Difficult times for medium & small size market players to sustain their business and you also get to watch big fish eating over small fish in order to gain more market access and avoid cut throat competition. However this kind of market behavior is un-usual and one point of time the economy has to bounce back and M.E & GCC as growing hubs for logistics are in the right track waiting for the perfect market situation to CASH.

Truth about Industry future
The logistic industry in uae needs knowledge sharing sessions, create forum and groups to protect the interest of the service provider, Training and development, create better human, come out with plans to protect the skill dilution and attaract national work force to this industry.encourage the uae nationals to come into this setor and reduce paper work and procedures. The future will only be bright with a consolidated effort from the industry leaders, experts and local community.

Revival of Logistics / Freight Trade
I agree on CONFIDENCE. This sector will revive. Although it will take a while probably late 2009 early 2010 for rebound, BUT it will. Quite Optimistic.

Agree with Nick
I agree with Nick and the rebound needs to be from where the fall started, which is the US. I heard some signs of improvement in the US market. Second half of 2009 is going to be tough for all of us, so we need to sustain and rebound. Good luck all!

There is a need
No doubt there is slow down but at the same time there is no complete decline, so we can say that the world is still in need for the logistics sector to enable the recovery of the world economy.

Confidence
I think the logistics sector has every reason to be confident and I think it has ridden through this crisis as well as could be expected. I think we are close to seeing the worst of the current economic problems and I have cause for some optimism later in 2009 and particularly 2010. The rebound is coming.