U-Freight’s starts U.S. export ocean consolidations to Southeast Asia

U-Freight’s starts U.S. export ocean consolidations to Southeast Asia International freight forwarder U-Freight’s ocean freight unit U-Ocean has launched weekly scheduled export consolidation services from New York and Los Angeles to Southeast Asia via transshipment in Hong Kong.
   'The dramatic decline of the dollar against a basket of major world currencies is cutting overseas prices for U.S. exporters,” said Terence Tsang, senior vice president of U-Freight America with specific responsibilities for U-Ocean's operations in North America. 'U.S. exports rose 10.7 percent in the first nine months of 2007 and this is a great time to launch the new service to capitalize on export growth and help U.S. shippers to connect directly with important markets throughout Southeast Asia.”
   'We plan to develop this service in line with U-Freight's strategy for continued expansion of its presence in the ocean freight business. We anticipate this service will further enhance U-Ocean's position as an ocean freight forwarder in the USA. Already, plans are in place to introduce a service from our Chicago hub in March.”
   U-Freight rebranded its international ocean freight forwarding activities under the U-Ocean banner in 2006 not long after it acquired a majority stake in Comax, a small Hong Kong-based logistics company specializing in ocean freight forwarding between China and the United States.
   'At that time, we made no secret of our desire to expand from our air freight forwarding roots to selectively develop ocean freight services as a way of further leveraging our strong positions in certain regional markets and business sectors,' said Simon Wong, U-Freight's chief executive officer.
   'This particular service will be the springboard for a number of new ocean freight consolidation services, not just from the USA, but between other parts of our international network,' he added.