Parag Warerkar, Chairman & Chief Visionary Officer, M.R. Warerkar & Associates Pvt. Ltd. and Chair Technical Committee Warehousing Association of India (WAI) said, “National Logistics Policy paves the way for India to have a fully integrated ecosystem for the development of the Logistics and Warehousing industry. An ecosystem that accounts for accelerated and integrated growth is essential to the Indian economy.” He further added, “For the National Logistics Policy to effectively fulfil its purpose, however, there are some key deterrents that need to be addressed; particularly the issue of land acquisition. Logistics and warehousing hubs need to be an integral part of city and industrial estate development plans. At present, land for large hubs need to be acquired from agricultural holdings and land use converted, causing delays in setting up facilities due to numerous and complicated government approvals. The solutions to be explored are; can the ministry call on the various planning departments to incorporate this suggestion in the development plans for infrastructure development?” “The warehousing market in India is expected to grow to ₹2243.79 billion by 2026, expanding at a CAGR of 10.90%, as per the Warehousing Market in India 2022 Report published by Netscribes (India) Pvt Ltd. Integrating and allocating land and infrastructure will greatly ease the process of setting up logistics and warehousing parks for private players. Accounting for existing issues such as land acquisition will help capitalize on the industry’s growth and ensure the successful implementation of the National Logistics Policy,” said Warekar.

Knight Frank India, in its latest report reckoned that Kochi has a big potential to develop itself as a warehousing market, as indicated by the rise in the transaction volumes in e-commerce and manufacturing segments during FY2022. According to the latest reports, the port city has recorded a warehousing transaction volume of 0.3 million sq ft in the last financial year. Accordoing to the report, Kochi has long been a key centre for warehousing activities, but due to various reasons, including a lack of push from the administrators, the city failed to live up to its potential. Things seem to be changing slowly with Kochi now showing signs to emerge as a hub of warehousing activities. In its ‘India Warehousing Report 2022’, Knight Frank India said industry-split transactions in Kochi showed that a majority of the transaction pie was made up by the e-commerce sector, which had a 32 per cent share of the transactions. Apart from that, the manufacturing industry was the second-most active in the market, contributing 28 per cent of the overall amount of transactions during the course of the year. The state government is also taking steps to promote Kochi as a warehousing centre.

According to a latest report by Colliers, Industrial and warehousing demand in India witnessed a 9 per cent YoY rise during January-September 2022 with a total gross absorption of 17.5 million square across feet in the top-five cities in India. Demand remained resilient during the third quarter as well, at 6.7 mn sq ft, the highest since Q1 2021. “Third-party logistics players (3PLs) remain by far the top occupiers of warehousing space, contributing to over half of the total warehousing demand till date. Improved retail market sentiment amidst festive season and higher online spending continue to support warehousing growth and is expected to add to short-term demand addition,” the report stated. It further added that Delhi-NCR led the demand during YTD 2022 at 39 per cent share, followed by Pune at 21 per cent share in total leasing backed by robust demand from 3PL players, engineering and e-commerce players. Tauru road and Luhari remained the most active micro-markets in Delhi-NCR, while Chakan-Talegaon continued to attract industrial occupiers in Pune.

Stellar Value Chain Solutions has set up 2-million sq. ft of warehousing operations in five new Indian cities including Surat, Nagpur, Indore, Raipur and Patna, said an official release. The new built-to-suit centers will push the company’s warehousing space footprint to 14 million sq. ft. These new warehouses have been set up to meet the rise in demand of the festive season sales in tier II cities. In addition, warehouse and distribution service provider, is also planning to operate warehouses in Lucknow and Vijayawada. This is in line with the company’s goal to create a warehouse infrastructure of 50 million sq ft across India and a fleet of 50,000 trucks.

Parvinder Singh, Managing Director, Hans Infomatic said, “GST for airfreight is 18% and ocean freight is 5%. Now per kilo, the rate of ocean freight is much less than the airfreight. So there’s less tax burden. For sea freight forwarders’, it will be very miniscule but for air cargo sector, its huge. The forwarders can take reimbursements, but it will be reimbursed in three to four months’ time. So, the working capital will be blocked and also everyone cannot claim the taxes back from the government. With high airfreight rates and working capital under pressure, the deployment of capital will be a big challenge. Only big freight forwarding companies will be able to handle it and survive.”

DHL Express has opened RM10.8 million (approx. EUR 2.35 million) Johor Gateway facility located within the Senai Airport City industrial park. Spanning over 6,000 sqm of warehouse space, the facility is more than twice the size of its predecessor and will support robust trade growth in Malaysia’s southern region. According to the official release, the new Johor Gateway comes equipped with a high-speed conveyor system capable of sorting up to 1,900 shipments per hour. This offers improved shipment processing for the more than 1,800 parcels and documents bound for and coming from the facility’s busiest trade lanes, namely the United States, Australia, United Kingdom, Singapore, Germany, Hong Kong, China, and Japan. The faster transit times make for an uptick in service quality for customers in Johor and Singapore.

We recently launched our 100,000 sq. feet multi-client wareousing facility in Bhiwandi and Mumbai and we have plans to expand across key markets in India including Bengaluru and New Delhi, said Deepak Tiwari, COO, KSH Logistics. “Currently, we have over 300,000 sq. ft. of MCF warehousing space with a capacity of over 3000 pallet positions. Over the next 12 months the company plans on expanding its MCF network to 6 cities and take up the total area to 7,00,000 square feet with over 7000 pallet positions,” he added. “In the last couple of years, the awareness and availability of different product categories has increased tremendously due to the growth of ecommerce platforms. Consumers are getting a variety without having to step out of their homes; ease of buying with fast home deliveries has changed the overall buying patterns. This growth is not only reflective in major towns and cities but is also growing across Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities. These are in fact the potential cities for ecommerce business. To meet this growth in demand, we have operations (Dedicated & Multi Client) at Pune, Bangalore, Mumbai, Jaipur, Nashik, and Chennai. We serve varied customer segment like FMCD, FMCG, Automotive, Industrials, General Merchandise, and Retail, Home Furnishing and E-commerce,” Tiwari further informed.

Air cargo is witnessing growth but at relatively slow pace. The growth is expected to continue. Even today major shipping lines are investing heavily in aircraft which is a proof that the Air cargo industry is progressing,” said M Afzal Malbarwala, Founder, Galaxy Freight and President, Air Cargo Agents Association of India (ACAAI). There is a perception of a market down trending in Americas & Europe. We however see stable volumes month on month out of India and we believe the Asian markets are still strong inspite of the tremendous focus on China and associated challenges therein. Making space available at competitive rates, ability to deliver to fixed schedules still remain as base growth drivers. Complementing these would be the continued focus on infrastructure build up, accepting innovative methodologies while retaining the fixed touch on the customer’s pulse. The agenda should be to make the air freight operations process more pleasant and acceptable to all industry sectors,” he added.

Cargo Talk, South Asia’s leading and highly circulated magazine, was felicitated at the recently held symposium themed ‘New Logistics Policy-Embracing Opportunities’ organised by the Air Cargo Agents Association of India (ACAAI) at New Delhi. Amrit Lal Meena, Special Secretary (Logistics), Department of Commerce and Industry, Government of India was the chief guest on the occasion. Throwing light on the National Logistics Policy, he said, “The logistics sector has witnessed a push in the past few years, the capital expenditure has gone up to four times. The NLP targets to improve the logistics efficiency through 100 per cent digitization, standardization of warehousing, HR, skilled manpower, focusing on the EXIM trade and bringing all the states together.” Focusing on the multimodal connectivity, he added, economic zones are the mandate under PM Gati Shakti. “The target is to facilitate logistics efficiency so that all the economic zones do not face any kind of disruption. As part of Gati Shakti and NLP, all the ministries are implementing high scale and volume projects to improve the interest.”

The Airforwarders Association (AfA) and the National Customs Brokers and Forwarders Association of America (NCBFAA) are seeking a state or federal-backed Air Cargo Support Fund to tackle the infrastructural crisis facing the U.S. air cargo industry, said release. The recommendations form part of a whitepaper following a major national survey of 400 air cargo stakeholders in the public and private sectors undertaken by the organisations, identifying the critical issues and the airports where the challenges are greatest. Brandon Fried, Executive Director, AfA said, “With airports and airlines experiencing substantial revenue shortfalls over the past two years, the situation is becoming critical with potentially severe impacts on the economy and jobs throughout the country. Because of the lagging financials, airports will be allocating the monies of the Infrastructure Act to passengers, security, and safety, leaving insufficient funds to sustain air cargo operations. Additional funding, specifically dedicated to air cargo, is urgently needed.”