KLG Europe makes history with the future of the Silk Road

In this edition of Brand Stories, KLG Europe tells its story about the collaboration with the Chinese Sinotrans. Organizations in logistics are full of inspiring and informative stories. In Brand Stories these are told directly to you by them.

“When you do business in China you always need a local representative. By bundling local cooperation with our partners and Sinotrans creates even more synergy. This makes our business model even stronger and more effective', says Rien Gulden of KLG Europe, who is responsible for transport to and from Asia.

Conditioned transport

KLG also does a lot of conditioned transport; temperature controlled with own equipment. Such as electronic goods, chemicals and raw materials for the food industry. “China and the entire Asian region are a huge market for this. We distinguish ourselves with New Silk Way Logistics and our partners because we have a lot of assistance at the borders and priority positions at terminals. Partly thanks to Sinotrans, we have a comprehensive national network.'

“In addition, the Asian last-mile is in full development with shortsea connections to South Korea and Japan, among others. We can arrange transport to and from almost all destinations, without having to rethink the connection every time. The solution is already on the shelf, thanks to the optimal collaboration with our partners.'

Modalities

In recent months there have been many shifts between the various ocean and rail freight modalities, with a lot of ocean volume being shifted to rail. Gulden: 'We expect that this will recover in 2022, but this depends on, among other things, the capacity of ocean freight. We see a stabilization in the market in east and westbound volumes, which means that our rail product has become a mature modality between air and ocean freight.”

“In various sectors, we see that customers are constantly making choices between the different modalities. The customer chooses his optimal supply chain and goes back to one of the oldest trade routes in the world. Namely the New Silk Road, but now by rail. This with the sustainability gain and speed of the present.”

KLG Europe was acquired by Sinotrans two years ago. “We have been part of the Sinotrans Group since 2019, but the KLG Europe brand name is and will remain our main brand in Europe,” says Gulden. Sinotrans is listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. It has annual sales of $11.4 billion and has 36,000 employees. This makes it the largest freight forwarder in China.