2023-06-02 11:43:00
(AGL) – Africa Global Logistics will participate from June 5 to 6, 2023, in Abidjan, in the Africa CEO Forum. A few days before this important business meeting, Pierre Bellerose, Regional Director of AGL for the Côte d’Ivoire Burkina Faso region, outlines the challenges of AGL’s participation in this event and discusses the company’s new ambitions, its operational synergies and its impact on the revitalization of logistics value chains in Côte d’Ivoire and Africa.
What are the challenges of AGL’s participation in the Africa CEO Forum 2023?
As you know, AGL is a new brand that has recently joined the large MSC family. It therefore seems important to us to participate in the ACF, which brings together all the economic players in Africa and elsewhere, in order to meet our customers and partners. It is for us, to explain to them our new vision and our new ambitions, to be at the heart of the transformations of Africa. AGL aims to offer its African and global customers global, tailor-made and innovative logistics solutions. We will therefore continue to work with our customers, the States and all the stakeholders to promote our new AGL brand.
So what should be the benefits for your customers?
Since December 21, 2022, AGL has been part of the MSC group, the world’s leading shipowner committed to the sustainable transformation of Africa and emerging markets. This offers AGL the possibility of developing new operational synergies, between our various entities and with our sister subsidiaries of the MSC group. For exemple, in January 2023, we set up with the operational rail teams, a container block train solution, which made it possible to transport 77 wagons loaded with containers, containing nearly 2,000 tonnes of consumer products and aimed at ensuring, with regularity and speed, the delivery from Côte d’Ivoire to Burkina Faso of goods from Europe and Asia, intended for the local market. This type of synergy also affects the logistics sector where, thanks to MSC, we now have more ready-to-use empty containers to manage our customers’ requests as quickly as possible. Thus, with AGL, it is more synergies, more reactivity and speed, for a better quality of service to our customers.
Are you going to continue investing under your new AGL brand?
I would even say that we are going to increase our investments. Because we want to support the continent, by providing tailor-made logistics solutions, by improving the connectivity of territories, and by contributing to the establishment of a virtuous logistics ecosystem for all of its stakeholders. This requires more investment in infrastructure, equipment and training for our employees. Our ambition is legitimate and guarantees the provision to our local and international, public and private customers, of a unique integrated logistics network dedicated to the development of intra-African trade, able to improve the productivity of port terminals, to better serve all of our customers.
What about jobs? What is the current human resources situation at AGL, in the Côte d’Ivoire-Burkina Faso region, for which you are the primary manager?
As part of the deployment of AGL’s activities, we have effectively maintained jobs within our subsidiaries in Côte d’Ivoire and Burkina Faso, as indicated by our new shareholder, the MSC group. We have kept the same management teams as well as our operational teams who have proven expertise and knowledge of our local environments. In accordance with our skills development policy, we continue to regularly offer promotions to managers working within our departments. We are also committed to the continuous training of our employees. In addition, we continue to promote young African talents within our various subsidiaries. We are also committed to contributing to the consolidation of the economic fabric, thanks to the opportunities offered to local companies in the realization of our works and projects.
In December 2022, you inaugurated the second container terminal at the port of Abidjan, through your subsidiary Côte d’Ivoire Terminal. Can you give an update on the activities of this new terminal?
With the commissioning of our subsidiary Côte d’Ivoire Terminal, the port of Abidjan will have a capacity of 3 million TEU containers within a few years. This new terminal is primarily intended to develop transhipment activities in Abidjan. As you know, shipping companies like to have the choice between several port platforms available, it is this flexibility that Côte d’Ivoire Terminal offers them today. It also promotes more competitiveness for the port of Abidjan, with the reception of larger ships and allows Abidjan to join the club of major hub ports on the West African coast. Connected to a multimodal logistics network (sea, road, rail), making it possible to supply the countries of the hinterland (Burkina Faso/ Mali/ Niger), Côte d’Ivoire Terminal participates in the acceleration of the growth dynamic of Côte d’Ivoire. It also participates in strengthening the fluidity of the country’s imports and exports and contributes to the well-being of the populations, by being a lever for the development of local agricultural value chains, in particular, the cocoa, cashew nut, mango, etc
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