THE AFRICAN COURIER. Reporting Africa and its Diaspora! The African Courier is an international magazine published in Germany to report on Africa and the Diaspora African experience. The first issue of the bimonthly magazine appeared on the newsstands on 15 February 1998. The African Courier is a communication forum for European-African political, economic and cultural exchanges, and a voice for Africa in Europe.
Two companies have recently commenced groupage container service to Nigeria from Germany. Groupage means the consolidation of several small shipments into a single container.
Eze Shipping Service in Hanover and Vin Kem Shipping in Frankfurt/Main said they introduced the service in response to demand from their customers who would like to regularly send small consignment of goods to Nigeria.
It has been a big problem for clients wishing to send small consignments to Nigeria because air freight is very expensive, explained Vincent Ejikeme, the proprietor of Vin Kem. “Now, we have the best solution with our groupage service,” he added. “Your consignment is shipped in a container with other peoples’ goods.”
Maazi Chukwuma Eze of Eze Shipping said groupage container is more economical than all alternative methods of sending small consignments “because you are sharing the container with others”. He added that groupage is service is also ideal for exporters who often have insufficient cargo for a full container load. “Imagine you’d like to ship a certain quantity of goods, but the volume of your merchandise is not enough to fill a whole container. Why should you have to pay for empty space?”
Both companies accept consignments from different customers which they now ship in the same container to Nigeria. So, the owner of a consignment pays only for the volume their goods occupy in the container. “It is the best method for transporting small amount of goods, ranging from machines to gas cookers or refrigerators or any personal effects,” said Ejikeme.
Both Eze Shipping and Vin-Kem Shipping have warehouses in Lagos where the consignees collect the goods. Once the shipment charges have been paid in Germany, the consignees don’t pay any extra charges in Lagos when they collect their goods.
Austin Ohaegbu
