DP World Yarımca has introduced an innovative “car-to-container” transport solution to help solve the crisis in the automotive supply chain in the region.
In particular, congestion at Turkish ports has resulted in significant delays in delivering new vehicles against a backdrop of skyrocketing demand in the burgeoning automotive market.
Türkiye recently experienced an auto sales boom with a record 110,000 vehicles sold in June which is a 37.5% year-on-year increase, according to data from Automotive Distributors and Mobility Association (ODMD).
According to DP World, “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. This left customers waiting significantly longer for their new cars and caused prices to inflate across both the new and used vehicle markets.”
Therefore, using an alternative solution to help make more cars flow into the country more quickly, DP World began importing 10,000 vehicles by putting new SUVs from Chinese automaker Chery Automotive into containers.
This meant the vehicle could be offloaded using traditional cranes at LoLo ports and did not require a specialised RoRo port or berth, resulting in a significantly more efficient and resilient route to market.
The solution became more feasible when DP World and Chery implemented a specially designed racking arrangement to increase capacity by loading three SUVs into each container instead of two, which helped to improve the cost efficiency of transporting vehicles from China to Türkiye and reduce the cost passed on to consumers.
Additionally, the feasibility of the solution also made Yarımca an important stepping stone for the shipment of Chery Automotive vehicles into the booming Turkish auto market.
