DP World says that congestion at Turkish ports has resulted in significant delays in delivering new vehicles against a backdrop of “skyrocketing demand in the burgeoning automotive market”.
According to data from Automotive Distributors and Mobility Association, Türkiye recently experienced an auto sales boom with a record 110,000 vehicles sold in June – a 37.5% year-on-year increase.
With traditional importation and shipping solutions via ‘roll-on roll-off’ (RoRo) ships facing significant delays due to congestion at RoRo ports, car manufacturers were unable to make timely delivery on purchases – states DP World.
To address this, DP World says it implemented an alternative solution to help make more cars flow into the country more quickly.
The method involved importing 10,000 Chinese SUVs into containers. This meant the vehicles could be offloaded using traditional cranes at lift on lift off (LoLo) ports and did not require a specialised RoRo port or berth, resulting in a more efficient and resilient route to market.
While transporting containers in cars is far from novel, DP World did specially design a racking arrangement to increase capacity by loading three SUVs into each container instead of two.
This helped to improve the cost efficiency of transporting vehicles from China to Türkiye and cut the cost passed on to consumers.
DP World also argues that the feasibility of the solution has made Yarımca an important stepping stone for the shipment of Chery Automotive vehicles into Turkish auto market.
Photo: DP World
Commenting on the new shipping solution, Rashid Abdulla, CEO & Managing Director of DP World Europe said:
“When we describe DP World to the outside world we often say we are a global smart trade enabler – this solution is an innovative example of what we mean by that. The automotive industry has experienced significant changes and supply chain challenges in the last few years globally, and in Türkiye that ranged from microchip to RoRo capacity shortages. I’m proud that our team could implement an alternative solution that helped to ease these challenges – and that we played a key role in the expansion of Chery Automotive into the Turkish market.”
Kris Adams, CEO of DP World Yarımca, added:
“Our terminal at Yarimca, which has not traditionally moved vehicles, is now becoming a key hub for new vehicles entering the market. The new innovative solutions we have introduced will help Chery Automotive to establish itself as a significant supplier in this market and in neighbouring countries, offering economic benefits to Türkiye while also helping consumers get their new cars more quickly.”