Elizabeth de Jong, Director of Policy at FTA, talks to The Logistics Point about its Logistics Report, what happened in 2019 and what the business organisation’s members expect to happen in the following decade. Despite the many challenges ahead the overall mood is optimistic.
FREE: The Logistics Point Magazine Jan2020
The full interview with Elizabeth you can read in the February issue of The Logistics Point coming out on the 25th February!
Subscribe here to read the January issue and get the February one immediately after it’s published.
What is the biggest conclusion from FTA’s 2019 Logistics Report?
There are two things I found very interesting from our exclusive research. The first relates to the fall in the UK’s global competitiveness. The UK was the 8th most competitive nation in the world out of 140 countries in 2018; however, in just one year it has lost two places. Looking deeper into this trend, we can see that the UK performs particularly poorly in road connectivity compared with other countries: the UK is 29th overall. We also rate quite low in rail, air and port efficiency….
Is Brexit the only reason behind the reduction in profit margins or are there others?
Brexit is a contributing factor, but fewer companies than you would expect planned early for Brexit – perhaps because their profit margins were already low, so they had no spare capital to invest. The uncertainties around Brexit led many businesses to postpone investment decisions which could have led to increased efficiencies….
What are the positive signs in FTA’s report?
As an industry, we are positive and we want to deliver results. 77% of the respondents to FTA’s Logistics Report anticipate their business will grow in the next three years. We often talk about the difficulties the sector needs to overcome, but what we always find is that the industry is resilient, adaptable and optimistic.
More on the 25th February 2020!
#logistics #competitiveness #FTA #elizabethdeJong #Logisticsreport
