2009-12-11 16:12:32 -
Japan Freight Transport Report Q1 2010 - a new market research report on companiesandmarkets.com
www.companiesandmarkets.com/Summary-Market-Report/japan-freight- ..
Loss-making Japan Airlines (JAL) was in September reported to have opened talks with Delta Airlines of the US and Air France-KLM of Europe. Japanese newspaper the Daily Yomiuri said on September 13 that JAL was looking for a capital injection as well as code-sharing deals on international routes. The newspaper noted that if agreements were reached, this would be the first time JAL received help from foreign airlines. JAL has been struggling financially in the recession, the Daily Yomiuri said. In the quarter to June it reported net losses of JPY99bn (US$1.09bn), battered by lower passenger traffic and the effects of the H1N1 swine flu epidemic. The company hopes to steady losses for the current financial year to JPY63bn. In
June, JAL received JPY100bn in bank loans to cover its capital shortfall, on condition that it presents a restructuring plan. The Development Bank of Japan is one of the lenders, and JAL was formally placed under the supervision of the construction and transport ministry, and required to present a new strategy by the end of September. According to the Daily Yomiuri, tie-ups with foreign carriers were a key part of the emerging plan. The airline´s prime objective in the Delta/Air France-KLM talks appeared to be to secure new capital and reduce its dependence on the Tokyo government for bailout money. At an operational level, code-sharing will give JAL long-haul passengers better access to the partner networks in the Americas and the US (Delta is the world´s largest airline, Air France-KLM is the largest in Europe). Following our last quarterly report, we have slightly lifted our GDP forecasts for Japan. We estimate that the economy contracted by 0.7% in 2008 and will shrink by 5.5% in 2009, the worst year of the last decade. For the new 2010-2014 forecast period, we expect annual average GDP growth to be 1.8% compared with the zero, standstill figure achieved over the preceding five years. This is a modest but reasonable foundation for the further development of the Japanese freight transport industry. We continue to be cautious about freight turnover forecasts by individual transport modes. Fuel price uncertainty will exert an ongoing dampening effect on road haulage volumes. A slump in business demand is also holding back airfreight, but Japanese airports have reduced their high landing fees. As a result, we expect average annual growth in freight turnover to be 1.6% in 2010-2014. On a year-on-year (y-o-y) basis, we estimate growth will have slumped by 10.5% in 2009, and we forecast gains of 0.8% in 2010 and 1.0% in 2011. According to our estimates, transport and communications GDP will have fallen by 5.5% in 2009, on a par with GDP. For 2010-2014, we expect the freight transport sector to lead the economy as a whole by a small margin in value terms, with growth of 1.9% as against 1.8%. The total value of freight transport GDP will rise to US$304bn in nominal terms by 2014, or 6.3% of Japans GDP. The sector employed 4.02mn people, 6.3% of the labour force, in 2009. We see the first figure falling to 3.97mn by 2014, while as a proportion of the total labour force employment in the industry will continue at 6.3%. The intermodal split will remain fairly stable. Average annual growth in freight carried will be 1.6% (-1.4% in the previous five-year period). Performance will be strongest in shipping, with annual average freight carried growth of 2.3%, followed by air freight (1.8%), and road haulage and rail (+1.2% in both cases).
