Ready for the shift in routes
Any logistician such as Gürhan Takil, the head of the forwarder Taklog, who serves markets in the Caucasus, the Middle East as well as in Central Asia, had to be flexible even before the outbreak of Covid-19. Since the northern route of the New Silk Road was eliminated the small firm from Hof, in Bavaria, has benefited from its great experience in transporting a wide variety of goods to these markets.
Gürhan Takil is running on adrenalin. “Last week we dispatched a shipment of aid supplies to Syria, and we’ll be sending the next one to Turkey soon,” says the owner of Taklog. He took over the former Hof branch of TBT Transporte in 2003, as he told the ITJ before the interview. These projects aren’t special for Taklog, but they’d be difficult to achieve for any operator without Taklog’s long experience in specialised fields.
The fact that the firm is dedicated to logistics to and from Central Asia – including Afghanistan – is also due to Takil’s biography. The region accounts for about 45% of the firm’s volumes; the Caucasus accounts for about a third, ahead of business with the Middle East (including Cyprus, Lebanon and Iraq). Takil learnt the trade with Militzer & Münch in the 1990s, and in subsequent stations specialised in traffic with the East. In 2002 he went into business for himself. Today, Taklog has four employees at its head office, two in an branch office opened in the Uzbek capital Tashkent in 2004, and four in a partner’s office in Mersin (Turkey).
Taklog employees are experts for the transport of goods to the east quickly and cheaply from Central Europe, recently from France and Spain too. There’s no alternative to road transport solutions for shipments destined beyond Turkey.
No alternative to the roads
“We have ten curtain-sided trailers in regular service, as well as 30 reefer trailers – bi-thermal double-decker ADR units. We pass transport requests that call for more on to subcontractors,” Takil says about Taklog’s asset-light approach.
The firm handles everything from liquid goods and chemical products to machine parts, including construction and materials and pharmaceutical goods – GDP-certified, also for the long distances.
A truck takes approximately 70 days to cover the route from Central Europe to Almaty (Kazakhstan) and back. Until a little more than a year ago, the northern route via Russia was cheaper, better developed and less time-consuming, because of the fewer border crossings.
Some solutions, for example an exchange of trailers at Poland’s eastern border, or attempts by large Belarusian hauliers to relocate their fleets, which often comprise several hundred vehicles, or to found subsidiaries in Poland, haven’t proved practicable, Takil observed.
The markets in the south are already saturated, the financial and administrative effort doesn’t always pay off and the competition, especially from Turkey, is more flexible, he says. “The southern route is safer, though it’s 50–60% more expensive and takes 10–15 days longer.” Taklog also knows its way around there, which is why the company even saw an increase in business after the war in Ukraine began.
Facing plenty of competition
The biggest challenge, according to Takil, lies elsewhere. “The transport infrastructure beyond Turkey isn’t really ready yet for these greater volumes.” It’s thus normal for a truck to have to wait three to five days in Baku before the ferry takes it across the Caspian Sea.
Add wind and snow to the equation, as was the case recently on New Year’s Day, and this can quickly turn into 15–20 days. But Takil knows that “we have to continue to expand here,” especially as the sanctions on Russia will remain in force for a long time after the end of the war, which is not yet foreseeable.