Electronic's, machinery to drive growth for us in South East Asia: Skyways Group

In February 2022, Skyways SLS Logistik, a Skyways Group company, announced the opening of its office in Hong Kong in partnership with Sino Global Logistics. We recently caught up with the managing director of Skyways Group, Yashpal Sharma to discuss his business in Hong Kong, South China and South East Asia (SEA) region.

Hong Kong is one of the most important gateways for South China business, especially for airfreight and no wonder Skyways found it the right place to open a new office.

Sharma said, "As we expand our service offering to partners and customers in the consuming economies of Europe and the Americas we must have a presence in the major originating economies of Asia. Hong Kong sits very well with this plan and will play a major role in adding substantial value not just for our existing customers but also in adding some major new clients too."

Sino Global Logistics is a Shanghai-headquartered logistics and freight forwarding company that has been serving customers on the China-India lane and also to other parts of the globe for over 15 years. Sharma said, "They have been one of our trusted partners over the last 4 years. The chemistry between both companies has been extremely good and we both are confident that this synergy(JV) in Hong Kong will be mutually beneficial."

Started operations in 1983, Skyways Group is headquartered in New Delhi, India and is expanding its footprint within India and Asia over the last decade.

Meanwhile, Skyways Air Services, being the largest airfreight forwarder in India, is now also among the Top 30 'Global IATA list for e-AWB' for transactions in the last 12 months and the only Indian forwarder in the top 100. The company has attributed this achievement to the continuous digital transformation that the group has gone through over the last decade.

Skyways has been moving a good amount of air cargo between South China and Hong Kong to India over the last few years and now they have plans to grow. Some of the major Asian airports for Skyways are Hong Kong, Hanoi, Kuala Lumpur, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Narita, Seoul & Singapore.

"Skyways handles over 60000 tonnes of airfreight currently across its offices with 500 tonnes and 5-600 TEUs per month from South China at this moment which will grow 2-3 times due to the new Hong Kong office," Sharma said.

Some of the major commodities handled by Skyways on this lane include electronics, accessories, garments, machinery and automotive while it is looking forward to growing both air and ocean business from China and HKG.

He said, "Electronics and machinery are major commodities which will drive growth for us over the next 12-24 months in this region. We are eagerly looking at e-commerce to be a big addition to our portfolio too. Also, we have been successfully running charter programmes across Asia and India over the last 24 months and we will add more in the months ahead not just to India but from Asia to Europe, the Middle East and the Americas."

Good relations with the carriers, both airlines and shipping lines, are crucial for logistics players particularly when the capacity is limited and supply chains are under stress.

"Even in the toughest times, we have been able to offer adequate capacities to our clients which ensured the least stress to their supply chains. We have also collaborated with various charter operators and created added capacity for customers whenever they had additional needs or the scheduled capacities were not enough. Smart usage of alternate airports and seaports for customers has been one of the most appreciated and effective solutions," he said.