FedEx to focus on export cargo business

Federal Express Corp (FedEx), the world's leading express delivery company, is happy with the way the export cargo business is growing and felt no need to immediately enter the domestic cargo market in India.

FedEx may increase the number of flights from India since the existing scale of operation is reaching capacity.

FedEx operated A310 flight from Mumbai with capacity of 292 tonne each turn every week.

Buoyed by the growth, the company has developed a special packaging solution for the fashion industry.

"This has been developed at the FedEx Packaging Design and Development Lab in Memphis, USA," Samuel A Thomas, senior country manager, India, said.

FedEx has several products for the domestic sector in north America and the US.

In India, though, it would continue to focus on its export cargo business as it has shown impressive growth.

"We are evaluating the network. Our investment will be in strengthening the on-air network so that schedule time of delivery can be shortened," Thomas said without giving exact timeframe for the expansion.

"The focus area is express cargo, door-to-door and box segment. At this point we have no plan for domestic business," Thomas said.

In the export segment, manufacturing, pharmaceutical samples, garments, gems and jewellery are providing highest business opportunity from India.

Thomas said Indian business is growing more than the average growth of international air express cargo of 15 per cent.

Four types of packages have been developed for the textile industry. They included sample boxes for T-shirt, shirt and specially tailored FedEx Sleeve to hold rolls of fabrics, carpets, linen and furnishing.

To support the burgeoning Indian business, FedEx has launched three technology initiatives, namely, FedEx Global Trade Manager, FedEx Insight and G-Tracker.

The technology initiatives are web-enabled and would enable customers, including consignees, to get a detailed communication on shipments.

The Global Trade Manager had been launched to enlighten customers on over 1,000 export/ import forms covering 40 countries and over 9,500 commodity descriptions to help customers identify which documents should accompany their shipment.