Factfinding Mission Logistics Ukraine.

When you search the web for factfinding missions, you get quite some results. These missions have been successful for many years and are being organised by different institutions and for different companies.

September 29^th till October 2^nd was the date set for the “Factfinding Mission Logistics Ukraine”. This mission was organised by the Limburg Chamber of Commerce and the European Logistics Centre Limburg (ELC Limburg). This mission will lead the attendants though Kiev and Odessa. But that’s not all. Companies in Irbin and  Brovary will be visited as well. Director Wibo Feijen attended this mission on behalf of Steel-Solutions B.V..

Why would a company as Steel-Solutions attend this mission? As the name of the mission says it, logistics and transport form a central point of attention during this mission. That is exactly what Steel Solutions is about. In the next decade or so, Steel Solutions wants to become the biggest steel logistics service provider in Europe. In order to achieve this, a big network and the right information can help you halfway. Attending a mission such as this can help you expand your network and you can see how other companies, that may have more experience, are doing their business. You can learn from everything you see and take advantage of it.

The visit in Kiev started off with a visit of the old city centre and the evening ended with a joined dinner with other Dutch guest that work in Kiev. This gave the attendants a chance to get to know each other a bit. Among the attendants were:

-          Mr J. Tindemans from Maastricht Aachen Airport.

-          Mr A. Assink from the Chamber of Commerce Limburg

-          Mr A.J. Boekestijn from Boekestijn Transport Service

-          Mr J.M.C. Emons from Emons Group Holding BV

-          Mr W. Feijen from Steel-Solutions BV

-          Mr W. Houben from the Chamber of Commerce Limburg

-          Mr K. Kuijken from KLG Europe Venlo BV  

-          Mr E. Loijen from KLG Europe Venlo BV

-          Mr P. Swinkels from ELC Limburg

-      Mr C. Werner from Acces business Group International BV

After a good night rest, the second day of the mission started off with a seminar at the Dutch embassy in Kiev. After that, some Ukrainian companies where visited. Traxsim, the Ukrainian location of DAF Trucks NV was visited, as well as  Raben, an international logistics service provider.

 

 On Tuesday the company flew to Odessa where the two container terminals were visited. Odessa and Illichevsk are two large harbours in Ukraine. Illichevsk even is a short sea connection of the harbours of Antwerp and Rotterdam, ideal for cost-saving and environmentally conscious transportation. Odessa is well-known to be a steel transhipment harbour with a lot of container traffic. Interesting places to visit if your company, like Steel-Solutions, has its own covered dock and possibilities to load and unload vessels and containers.

But not just the harbours and companies were interesting. Steel Solutions is very open minded about engaging in new business relations. In order to know what you are getting yourself into, is it important that you get to know the country, its people and its business life. Especially when there is a language or cultural barrier is it important that you try to know as much of the country and the functioning of business and daily life.

Going on this factfinding mission gave Steel-Solutions B.V. an insight of what it can expect if this journey would lead to a promising business cooperation. It is a fact that Ukraine has been under the watching eye of communism until 1991. This has left its mark on not just daily life but also on the way business it being dealt with. Everything is rather formal; documents and stamps for everything. This coincides with the drive of the Ukrainian people to work. They are very eager to work but they require a lot of information to feel safe and take action. But Mr. Wibo Feijen has seen more than enough reasons to take action. The steel sector takes up a large part of the Ukrainian economy. Since Ukraine is not a member of the EU (yet), is it hard to import steel into the European Union. Nevertheless Steel-Solutions sees opportunities here and will investigate possibilities in this area. On top of that Steel Solutions sees  opportunities in exporting Ukrainian steel to the growing economy   Africa. As a logistic service provider, Steel-Solutions would like to become a pioneer in this logistic connection between these two economies. With a large amount of steel companies situated in Ukraine, there is enough activity and movement of steel to give this a serious try…

(If you would like to have a better impression, please click here to see more photos of the mission.)