“If Romania were to make a Christmas wish list, the first wish should be better infrastructure,” Stefano Arganese said. There is a highway connecting Bucharest and Constanta, but the country also needs infrastructure to connect Bucharest to Europe, he added.
DHL Freight is the road and rail freight service arm of logistics company DHL, controlled by Deutsche Post. It has been operating in Romania for ten years and has two offices, one in Bucharest and one in Timisoara and is currently employing 50 people. DHL Freight along with express mail service provider DHL Express operates as DHL International Romania.
Things are different in Hungary and Czech Republic, the infrastructure level is different, Arganese says, admitting that he has indeed seen some progress in Romania, too.
Romania has 548 kilometers of highway and is among the last countries in the EU in terms of highway network. Bulgaria has 620 kilometers of highways and another 138 kilometers under construction.
DHL Freight is seeing growth in Romania, above the level of its industry and its performance depends on the exports and imports of the country, on the trend of the economy, its CEO says.
Stefano Arganese would not say how much freight the company transported from Romania, nor what its revenue is. The company does not reveal such data on a country by country basis, only globally, he explained.
The freight service unit does not use its own trucks for shipments, it works with about 400 suppliers in Romania. DHL Freight operates in more than 50 countries and posted revenues of about EUR4.2 billion from its international operations. It carried 44 million tons of freight using five million trucks last year.
The freight movement business is a barometer of the performance of the economy and of market trends.
Certain industries in Romania grew faster, such as oil and gas and automotive. Technology, engineering and manufacturing are flat from last year, DHL Freight CEO said.
The division’s revenue is not unknown but together with the express mail unit it generated 185 million lei (EUR42 million) revenue and RON8.1 million in net profit last year, employing 410 people, according to Finance Ministry data.
“Our goal is to keep growing in this market, we are working very hard, looking for talent and investing in training it.”
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)