P&O Ferrymasters has set up a a new commercial base in Poland to take advantage of the recent explosion in freight transport in Eastern Europe. The office in Chorzów, near Katowice, is expected to handle some 1,000 Full Trailer Loads (FTL) in 2008, rising to 5,000 FTLs by 2010. Katowice sits in the centre of a major steel production area, close to a new railway hub and 20km from Poland's largest inland port.
Herman Braam, P&O Ferrymaster's freight management division director, reckons "Strategically, Poland is very important and we expect Katowice to become an important hub in our future rail strategy. It is key to the new emerging markets of the Ukraine, Bulgaria and Turkey as well as linking well with some of our historically strong markets such as Italy, Greece and Spain."
P&O is targeting steel transport in particular as a key business growth area in the region, having invested in 200 new coil carriers which gives it the largest coil-carrying fleet anywhere in mainland Europe.
It is also looking at establishing what it calls "a block train" into Poland with improved connections to the east to capture business on the trade lanes operating between Hungary and Romania, Poland and the Czech Republic and Hungary to Poland. According to Braam: "Intermodal activity is also increasing due to road congestion and driver availability issues coupled with a demand for environmentally-friendlier transport."