OCTOBER 2013 THE AFRICA CONNECTION 02 AFRICA PERSONAL ACCESSIBLE RELIABLE 03 Executive Letter 02 by Jan Willem de Braal 05 The NileDutch Story 1,000 sailings strong in Europe 07 Regional News First call at Xiamen, China Expansion of European out ports 09 Feet on the Street Introducing our Branch Office NileDutch Antwerp 11 Introducing our e-Services On board and on our way to a new online presence 13 Our New Build Vessels The art of shipbuilding. Constructing four new NileDutch vessels one step at a time 14 WEWA 1000th event Celebrating in style 17 Customer Story Golden Harvest - South Africa 19 Project Cargo Out of Gauge shipments 20 Regional News NileDutch France Cycling in Antwerp E-mail system changes New NileDutch agent in Turkey 23 Person in the Picture Chasing your dreams with Joao Nascimento 25 Guest Story The future of Africa 27 Looking to the future The NileDutch Agency Meeting 2013 29 Contact Details 31 Sneak Peek at Issue 3 Cover picture taken in the Port of Lobito, Angola; Francisco Ingles. Picture on page 2 and 3 taken in the countryside outside Durban, 31 Contributors South Africa. 03 JAN WILLEM DE BRAAL ! Dear Friends, Welcome to issue two of The Africa Connection. Or would Plus, an interview with Joao Nascimento, Branch Manager you prefer Bienvenue dans le numéro 2, Bem-vindo à ediçao NileDutch Portugal, a glimpse into the activities of NileDutch 2 or 欢迎来到第2期? That’s right: The Africa Connection is Antwerp and a customer story from South Africa that high- now available in English, French, Portuguese and Chi- lights the importance of flexible planning. nese, connecting even more people around the world with Africa. I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has contributed to the magazine, including Pieter Kotze, Import Issue two is full of milestones. We have just had our 1,000th and Export Trader, Golden Harvest and Gail Rushin, Director, sailing from Europe to West Africa, so it’s a perfect time to look African Logistics and Shipping International, Bart Henau and back on how NileDutch has evolved since our first sailing in my fellow NileDutchers: Johan de Graaf, Mark Kraaijenbrink, 1984. And, as you would expect from us, we celebrated this Manuella Maes, Joao Nascimento and Larissa N’gbo. with a great party. Lastly, I cannot believe the number of positive comments and Our two-yearly Agency Meeting, held in Rotterdam in May, messages that we’ve received about the first issue. Thank you was another milestone. Covering our strategy for the next all for your words of support and encouragement! We love to few years as well as brainstorming about potential service hear from you, so don’t hesitate to get in touch improvements and expansions, the Agency Meeting plays an ([email protected]). important role in shaping our future. Please enjoy reading The Africa Connection and doing busi- If that’s not enough, this issue also includes: the launch of ness with NileDutch! the new NileDutch website, an update about the four new NileDutch vessels and an important upgrade of our email sys- tems. 04 1,000 sailings strong in Europe Where were you in 1984, 1991 and 2003? These may sound like random points in time, but not for NileDutch. We were busy celebrating mile- stones: the 1st, the 100th and the 500th sailings between Europe and West Africa. As the 1,000th sailing has just unloaded its cargo, let’s look back at how shipping with NileDutch has evolved over the years. The NileDutch 05 STORY LARISSA N’gbo ! SAILING 1,000 Date: MARCH 2013 - VESSEL: Natalie SCHUlte 11000A AND 11000Z Spring this year saw NileDutch pass a real milestone: our 1,000th sailing between Europe and West Africa left Antwerp for its southbound journey. Loaded with containers and out of gauge cargo (OOG – see page 18), the vessel took 22 days to arrive in Angola. While at first glance, shipping containers don’t seem as chal- lenging as the types of cargos that we handled at the previous milestones. But it’s not as straightforward as the outward ap- pearance of a standard TEU suggests. Getting the best balance MV “NDS Atlantic” - 100/91 - Hamburg - 9th October 1991 of weight, commodities, origins and destinations isn’t always easy, especially when it is being combined with OOG cargo. And, thanks to our weekly sailing schedule, volumes are a lot higher now. SAILING 500 Date: MAY 2003 - VESSEL: NDS PRODIGY Technology has transformed the office-based side of shipping: from requesting price estimates and sailing schedules before We had got stacking normal and unusual cargos down to an art placing a booking to filing B/Ls and tracking containers as they form on our RoRo vessels, and our Operations team seemed to are transported around the world. Essential daily tools include have developed a sixth sense about the best way to load over email, telephones, the ERP system and EDI, all of which are 2,000 pieces of cargo onto a vessel so that it was physically now fully used by most West African ports. impossible to squeeze anything else on board (apart from an escaping NileDutcher – see box on page 06). And some things have remained unchanged from our first sail- ing. We remain connected to our customers, to Africa and to Communication had come on leaps and bounds between our each other. We continue to take pride in our work and are mo- 100th and 500th voyage. Email was making communication eas- tivated to find a solution to any issue that might crop up. We ier, and electronic documentation had reduced the amount of happily work together as one huge family. paper couriered around the world. We also continue to strive to improve the service we offer our customers, as can be seen in the increases in origins and des- tinations (including inland destinations) served, the larger vol- umes handled, the newly implemented and strengthened struc- tures and the improvements in our reliability figures. LARISSA N’gbo Between 2003, our 500th sailing, and our 1,000th sailing earlier With a long background in shipping, this year, we changed our fleet to consist of container vessels Larissa N’gbo joined NileDutch in 1999. only. During the same period, our business underwent a huge She spent many years focusing on the processes and procedures within the company before joining the Com- expansion with the start of routes from South Africa, South East munications department as a dedicated team member five years ago. Asia, South America and China. It was definitely an exciting time for us. 06 We were still NDS in those days and our global agency network had just been established, managed centrally from Rotterdam, even though the Dutch port of call was Amsterdam! Little did we know that West Africa was just entering a period of rapid growth. Ciska Kamta - Celebration of Voyage 100 The Hague, The Netherlands SAILING 100 Date: OCTOBER 1991 - VESSEL: NDS ATLANTIC SAILING 1 Back in 1991, NileDutch vessels left port every three to four Date: SEPTEMBER 1984 - VESSEL: LE MANS weeks piled high with containers, vehicles, break bulk and, oc- casionally, even a tug boat or luxury yacht. The NileDutch offic- A sunny morning in September 1984 saw Wim van Aalst and es – the Head Office and an agency in Rotterdam and another Jan Jongschaap at the port of Rotterdam finalising everything office in Antwerp – managed everything. before the departure of the first sailing to West Africa. The Le Mans, a chartered vessel, was full of cars bound for West Africa Paperwork and documentation was very different too. Even before it returned with sawn timber, coffee and cocoa. Over 30 with a computer on every desk, the documentation was done years later these export cargos remain important for NileDutch, by hand before multiple copies were made (several for customs, but the volume of cars and other vehicles has reduced with the one for the port of origin, one for the shipper, one for NileDutch, expansion of our container cargo. …). Communication was by phone, by telex, by letter or in per- son, but it was not as frequent as it is now: for example, we had Most of our customers had heard of NileDutch (or NDS as it NileDutch Angola on the phone just a couple of times per week. was in those days) by word of mouth, showing how important our personal approach has always been to our company. While some large customers shipped with NileDutch, there were also a lot of private individuals shipping vehicles to West Looking back over the last 1,000 sailings, we are proud to say Africa, which led to frequent queries about the location of “a red that the hands-on personal contact and flexibility that were so car”, which could have been any of the 400 red cars on board important during our past continue to form the foundation of and sometimes turned out to be yellow or blue or green. our business today. Marinus van den Berg: The Dutch 007? “In 2003, the WEWA route included San-Pédro, Ivory Coast a well-timed telex, I managed to escape the violence on the and that’s where I was at the time of the 500th WEWA. There NileDutch vessel that was waiting for me in port. I think it’s prob- had been some reports of incidents between the government ably a bit late for me to apologise for any delivery delays caused and the rebels, but my trip and my customer visits continued as by the vessel waiting for me.