Freight service provider DHL Global Forwarding said Thursday that it has expanded its multimodal Asia-Europe network services to Korea in order to offer Korean companies flexibility in logistics when shipping to the European market.
Through the service, shipments from Korea can travel by ferry to China, then via DHL’s rail routes across Asia to Europe.
At a press conference held at The Plaza in Seoul on Thursday, DHL Global Forwarding’s CEO for North Asia Charles Kaufmann said that the rail services will be an optimal third option for customers who find that air freight is expensive and ocean freight is too slow.
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DHL Global Forwarding North Asia CEO Charles Kaufmann speaks to reporters at The Plaza in Seoul on Thursday. (DHL Global Forwarding) |
“We see a market where customers are shifting from air to rail because it’s cheaper. Other customers who use ocean freight but have delays in production can move their products quickly by rail, when they normally would have had to send it by air,” Kaufmann said.
According to DHL GF Korea Managing Director Song Seok-pyo, the new multimodal system cuts shipping time by about 20 days vis-a-vis ocean freight and cuts costs to about one-sixth that of air freight.
“Even if you have different modes of transport, by using one transport document we cover liability from domicile to domicile,” Kaufmann said. “We have our own operations in air freight, ocean freight and rail. We have one IT system. This makes it possible to have seamless transport.”
The service is already offered in Japan and Taiwan. According to the DHL executives, the service was delayed in Korea because the company needed time to assess customer demand and secure space on DHL’s trains.
By Won Ho-jung (
hjwon@heraldcorp.com)
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