Jan.23--SWISS-headquartered freight forwarding and logistics giant, Panalpina, has opened two offices in Casablanca and Nairobi to support its regional growth strategy with the primary focus on the energy and infrastructure sectors.
The new Africa bases will connect to the company's global network and the air freight, ocean freight and logistics divisions.
"With strong prospects in the two countries, especially in the energy and infrastructure sectors, establishing a formal presence is an important part of our long-term market growth and customer satisfaction objectives," said Mideast Africa CIS chief Peter Triebel.
"Morocco has great business potential - in future the country will serve as a gateway to Mauritania on the west African coast, and to the inland African countries of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger," said country manager Maxime van Geenberghe.
The Nairobi office is intended to take a "more focused approach to cultivating local business and also trade lanes from the Middle East and Asia into Kenya," added regional Juergen Palikothe.
This is Panapina's first major move into Africa since 2008 when it announced plans to close its Nigerian operations "because of difficulty doing business there without breaching anti-corruption codes".
It was impossible to achieve customs clearance quickly enough to meet customers' requirements, without "facilitation payments", sources said at the time.
(Source:shippingazette)