Low rates, high fuel ’round the world

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Updated Aug 16, 2012

Phillipines TruckLest we get too hung up on the distressing nature of so many of our own problems in U.S. trucking (following the last couple weeks’ worth of reporting on our industry’s top challenges), you’ll be interested (happy, even?) to note we’re not alone ’round the world. This piece on the Malaya Business Insight online paper about Philippine truckers’ high-fuel, low-rate, cutthroat-competition woes makes clear there’s no shortage of difficulty elsewhere.

While similar to the case of exports in the United States, export volumes increased by around 10 percent from this time last year, the early-year boost in oil (and hence diesel) prices is putting  damper on growth in volume and potential growth in rates.

Here’s what fleet owner Dominador de Guzman told MBI: “Trucking rates are still very low. Trucking companies cannot just increase or impose surcharges as clients just simply transfer to other operators that offer lower rates. Cargo volume is also still not enough to trigger any growth.”

Sound familiar? Read the full report here or click through the image above.

You can track back through my reporting on potential solutions to the top five owner-operator business challenges — including fuel, rates, detention and regulatory issues — via this page aggregating all of the stories.

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