RI exporters confident about sales

By Vincent Lingga

SINGAPORE (JP): Indonesian exporters are predicting strong sales over the next 12 months, concluded a recent survey conducted by the Gallup Organization at the order of DHL Worldwide Express.

"Respondents from Indonesia were the most bullish of all countries surveyed for new export orders from overseas in the next 12 months," Graham K. Davey, DHL's managing director for Southeast Asia, said at the World Trade Congress here yesterday.

Davey presented the results of the survey conducted last month in Australia, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam in a special session. The survey was based on 75 in-depth interviews in each country with high-level executives of major exporting companies and multinational corporations. A total of 623 top decision makers in exporting businesses were involved.

Indonesian exporters, according to the survey, consider costs and economic conditions to be the most important factors affecting their performances.

"They see other ASEAN countries as one of the most promising markets for export growth, followed by Europe, China and Japan," Davey added.

DHL Worldwide Express, which reported US$3.1 billion in sales turnovers in 1994, consists of two separate and independent private companies: The Brussels-based DHL International, which is responsible for all non-U.S. based express operations; and DHL Airways Inc., headquartered in Redwood City, California, which serves all locations within the U.S. and its territories.

Lufthansa and Japan Airlines each have a 25 percent share in DHL International.

DHL conducts its operations in Indonesia through its local partner, PT Birotika Semesta.

The bullish sentiment revealed is somewhat different from the views expressed by most businesses in Indonesia over the past year, which saw a significant downward trend in export growth.

"Reflecting upon last year, 69 percent of the respondents described their expectations for new export orders over the next 12 months as good or excellent," Davey said.

The survey showed that Indonesian exporters find certain economic conditions to be the biggest obstacles to export growth.

"Ten percentage points greater than the average for all the eight countries surveyed," Davey noted.

Trade restrictions were cited as the second biggest export inhibitor, followed by costs and company performance.

According to DHL's regional director for marketing, Colman Ridge, the rationale for his company's sponsoring of the export survey is economics.

"Packages and express freight are now both the largest source of our income and the fastest growing segment of our market," Ridge noted.

He quoted a 1995 Boeing report, which projected that air express freight worldwide will grow by 18 percent annually between 1995 and 2014, compared to only 6.6 percent in general air cargo. The cross-border air express freight market was estimated at US$6 billion last year.

Intra-Asia trade will post the highest annual growth at 19.3 percent in air express freight market, followed by Asia-North America at 18.7 percent, Asia-Europe 17.2 percent and N. America- Europe at 16.4 percent, Ridge added.

"Our records in Southeast Asia have been most impressive. Our air express freight growth for export related products was a staggering 59.3 percent last year," he noted.

According to a 1995 report by the Air Cargo Management Group, DHL, which links over 80,000 business centers in more than 220 countries, has been the international air express market leader with 44.70 percent of global volume as of the middle of 1995.

Federal Express is the second largest with 20.4 percent, followed by United Parcel Service with 12 percent and TNT with 11.4 percent.

DHL also claims to be the leader in the markets of express documents and parcels with an average market share of about 40 percent.

Ridge said DHL runs almost 500 service centers in 37 countries in Southeast Asia and the Far East.

Davey explained how an express courier service company like DHL has been transformed from mostly a mover of documents and packages.

"We have become a key logistics service provider for companies needing fast and time definite regional ad global distribution on a door to door basis," he said.

He said express delivery firms are now playing a pivotal role in the implementation of just-in-time manufacturing and global sourcing and manufacturing.