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Home > Business/Finance > Diversified Services > Shipping & Logistics
Australia Freight Transport Report Q3 2007
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The Australian freight industry continues to face strategic re-positioning. Most of 2006 was dominated by
Toll Holdings’ long battle to acquire its rival Patrick Corporation. In 2007, the takeover victors are
now restructuring around two main units, Toll and the newly-created Asciano, which groups rail and port
holdings. Toll is now seeking to build up a strong regional position in Asia, having also acquired
Singapore-based SembCorp Logistics and Sembawang Kimtrans. Meanwhile, another long-drawn out
battle, by Macquarie Bank and Texas Pacific Group (TPG) of the US to take over Qantas, the
country’s largest airline, has failed. This result was a blow to Qantas management, which had
enthusiastically backed the bid. Nevertheless, pressure will remain on the board to develop the company’s
strategy aggressively, as competition looks set to intensify.
BMI’s newly-released Australia Freight Transport Report concludes that these developments will be
positive for the domestic industry in the long term. Toll’s new economies of scale and international
ambition will be a plus factor. BMI believes that this new alignment, together with a new round of
competition in airfreight, will support our forecast that freight carried, measured by million tonne-km
(mntkm), across all modes will grow by an annual average of 4.8% between 2007 and 2011.
With jet fuel prices now at more reasonable levels, we expect airfreight traffic growth of 6.9% per annum
over the next five years. Rail freight will grow vigorously, rising by 5.3% per annum, on the back of
strong mining exports and infrastructure development. Road haulage freight will achieve average annual
growth of 4.2%, with strong demand held back by capacity limits. New motorway investment will not be
enough to keep ahead of demand. Our shipping freight forecast, boosted by commodity exports, is now
set for average annual growth of 4.8% in the forecast period.
These rates of growth are impressive for an OECD economy. It is important to underline that freight
growth will outstrip GDP expansion, a relatively unusual state of affairs for more developed economies.
Part of Australia’s attraction as a transport market is this combination of significant growth potential with
a strong and stable operating environment. BMI gives the Australian freight industry operating
environment a score of 50 out of a theoretical maximum of 70. This is significantly above the Asia Pacific
average of 44.5.
Our conclusion is that Australia can look forward to a particularly vibrant freight industry over the next
decade, with diversified growth across all modes, and with the overall value of transport and
communications growing to US$51.65bn by 2011, representing 5.7% of total GDP (up from around 5.5%
now).
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