C-SUITE
Agnes Lau gives a rundown on Schenker Singapore’s operations Agnes Lau is a seasoned professional with a remarkable 34-year career at DB Schenker, where she has an extensive track record of generating business revenue and devising commercial strategies. In 2018, she was promoted to lead the business development department as chief commercial officer, and this year, she assumed even greater responsibility as the CCO for the Singapore and Malaysia Cluster. Payload Asia talks to Agnes in this C-suite section to find out more about Schenker Singapore’s operations. Can you give a brief background about Schenker Singapore? Schenker Singapore is a leading global logistics service provider with 53 years of presence in Singapore. Our integrated solutions in air, ocean, land transport, and contract logistics support almost every industry, enabling connectivity to global and emerging markets. On top of our global network, we deliver innovative and sustainable solutions, ensuring our customers’ supply chain remains
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resilient and competitive. Which sectors are driving the demand for freight (by sea and air) in and out of SG? Which main routes does the team serve? The key sector driving demand is definitely the manufacturing sector. Singapore is known as a global hub for manufacturing high-tech goods. Many of the export and import shipments are related to electronics, pharmaceuticals, and precision engineering. The business-friendly ecosystem coupled with access to high-skilled talent has attracted many MNCs to set up their R&D hubs, headquarters, and regional distribution centers in Singapore. This has contributed greatly to hightech manufacturing output, and likewise the demand for freight. Similarly, Singapore is an attractive logistics and distribution center for moving goods in Asia and also to different parts of the world, attributed to the top-class transportation infrastructure and
AUGUST - SEPTEMBER 2023 | www.payloadasia.com
key connectivity to markets. Though some consumer spending may have shifted to services, we still see a very strong demand for consumer goods, boosted by e-commerce growth. Not forgetting, several sectors have consistent demand such as perishables and oil/petrochemicals which remain evergreen. We serve almost every route to key markets and ports around the world. Just to list the top few trade lanes would be our intra-Asia trade, Asia-Europe trade routes, and transPacific trade routes for ocean freight. For air routes, we have connections to all major global cargo airports, and the top lanes we serve include China, USA, Germany, India, and South Korea. How are macroeconomic fundamentals affecting the current demand? The current macroeconomic development thus far has shown us mixed signals with the global economic outlook forecasting
