Freight Forwarder

[via China Freight]

Company Profile

C.T. Freight was established in 1981 by Clive Thomas, who is owner and CEO of the company. They are the largest independent freight forwarder in Australia and have branch offices across Australia in Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth, Adelaide and Cairns, as well as branches in New Zealand, Singapore, and Los Angeles. They offer all facets of International Forwarding and Logistics, for both import and export, as well as 3PL services, Warehousing and Distribution. They own freezers and coolroom facilities at each office and operate freight terminals at Sidney and Melbourne, which can provide all-round services to sea and air freight forwarders. C.T. Freight is a top five airfreight IATA agent in Australia, was ranked third in the 2006 year result and spent over $34 million US with IATA in 2007 alone.

C.T. Freight and the Australia Air Industry

Air transport accounts for around 50% of C.T. Freight's total income and they are number one with airlines such as Emirates and British Airways. The majority of the air cargo they deal with is perishable goods, but they also handle every other kind of freight including hazardous and project cargoes. At present they are involved in forwarding project air cargo from Australia to Zambia in Africa, and Louisiana in the USA. Their business is very diverse and they can handle any air cargo to and from Australia.

The Australian & Chinese Freight Forwarding Market

The Australian freight forwarding market is more mature than the Chinese market, as it has developed over the last 100 years, whereas the Chinese freight forwarding market realistically began to develop only 20 years ago. The volume of cargo being shipped from china to the rest of the world is much greater than that from Australia, but this is to do with the difference in population. Even though Australian is about 85% of the size of China, there are only around 21 million people living there. In other words, the population of the whole of Australia is about the same as the population in Shenzhen or Shanghai.

The cooperation between China and Australia is very strong and it's getting stronger every year. The resent meeting between the Australian Prime Minister and the Chinese President can only strengthen this relationship. China has been very important to the Australian economy and despite the large difference in population, and Australia is ranked the seventh largest trading partner with China. The Australian economy is growing at a faster rate than any other western country, and this is directly attributed to the business relationship between the two countries. Mr. Wood's reason for coming to China was to meet his agents and partners face to face, in order to find out each others needs, learn from each other, and come up with solutions on how to create even more business.