Corridor Group named Logistics Achiever

Trade route and transport facilitator, the Walvis Bay Corridor Group took the silver award for its “Facilitating trade to and from Southern Africa” initiative, at the 2013 Logistics Achiever Awards Gala Dinner held at the Monte Casino Ballroom in Johannesburg.
This year marked the 25th year of the Logistics Achiever Awards. These awards recognise and reward logistics and supply chain excellence in southern Africa in the effective application of strategic, tactical and operational logistics.  
The Walvis Bay Corridor Group’s nomination placed in an elect group of logistics operators and service providers. Other entities nominated include the Automotive Industry Development Centre (South Africa), BAE Land Systems, SA/Turnstone Process Management Solutions, BAE Land Systems SA/Uti SDi, Beckman Coultier, Compass Waste Services/CargoWare, Dimension Data/Dawn Wing, Exxaro/Imperial Logistics, Home of Living Brands, Joy Global Africa – UTi Africa, Merpak Envelopes/Cargo Solutions, Nissan South Africa, SA Breweries/InSync, Sasol Oil, Sasol Oil – Resolve, Savino del Bene, Shell South Africa/Tanker Services, Triton Express/Dovetail Business Solutions, and UTi Pharma.  
These are a selection of the best projects and companies within the South African transport and logistics industry that the Corridor Group has to compete with.
Johny Smith, Corridor Group CEO said “We are elated that our efforts in facilitating cross border trade aimed at reducing the costs of doing business for our SADC trading partners by offering an alternative trade route, through the port of Walvis Bay, has been recognised with this award.  Also, the award is the result of the recognition merited for the commitment and support that the Walvis Bay Corridor Group members, partners and team have placed in this initiative that made a success of the Corridor Group’s Private Public Partnership (PPP) setup.”
Amongst the highlights achieved in terms of facilitating trade is the development of a strong Private Public Partnership in the transport and logistics sector in Namibia. For instance, the Corridor Group led the establishment of the TransKalahari Corridor Management Committee which is a partnership forum between Botswana, Namibia and South Africa; the establishment of a TransCaprivi Corridor Cluster between Namibia and Zambia in 2005 where both the private and public sector worked together to remove non-tariff barriers to trade along this route; the TransCaprivi Corridor Cluster has evolved in March 2010 into the Walvis Bay-Ndola-Lubumbashi Development Corridor Committee which is a PPP among the DRC, Namibia and Zambia and serves as a forum to address the bottlenecks along this route from Walvis Bay via Ndola in Zambia up to the Katanga Province in the DRC. The Corridor Group has also been recognisded for promoting Safe Corridors and Transport Security under the Safe Trade and Transport Corridor Programme aimed at improving road safety and transport security along the Walvis Bay Corridors. Finally, the Walvis Bay Corridor Group was appointed by Ministry of Works and Transport to facilitate the development of a National Transport Masterplan; and because of the Group’s successful track record was mandated to develop a framework and proposed implementation of the Logistics Hub development for Namibia as prioritised in the strategic plan for Namibia.