Rotterdam Shapes Up to Keep Shipping In --- In Competitive EU, Dutch Port Works to Stay Afloat
ROTTERDAM, the Netherlands -- It's something everyone in this job-hungry city would like to see more often: newly hired employees cheering as fireworks burst overhead to celebrate the birth of a new business at a muddy building site.</br></br>Franklin Mint, a U.S. mail-order company selling jewelry, figurines and collectibles, is investing $10.5 million and hiring 150 people to set up a new, pan-European distribution center. The company, a unit of Roll International Corp., is joining a growing list of multinational firms -- such as Swedish ball-bearing maker SKF AB and Merisel Inc., a California-based personalcomputer wholesaler -- that have decided to centralize their European logistics operations near Rotterdam, the world's largest harbor.</br></br>"Our three largest markets are the U.K., Germany and France. So what better place is there to be in than Rotterdam? This is the gateway to Europe as far as we're concerned," said Frank Clesse, Franklin Mint's vice president for worldwide distribution.</br></br>Port officials boast that means Rotterdam has just scored another point in the intensifying competition for business and investment among European ports. But other harbors dotting Europe's coast are catching up fast. During the first half of 1994, the amount of cargo shipped through Rotterdam rose a stronger-than-expected 5% from the year before, fueled by Europe's economic recovery and growing world trade. However, that's only about a third of the increase reported by smaller competitors such as Antwerp, Belgium, or Bremen, Germany, reflecting the Dutch port's eroding competitive position.</br></br>In the past four years, traffic volume in Rotterdam rose a meager 1.6%, compared with 9.4% in Hamburg, Germany, 9% in Antwerp and 13% in Zeebrugge, Belgium, according to the Antwerp-based European Port Data Association. In the fast-growing and highly competitive container-shipping business, Rotterdam's market share in the Le Havre-to-Hamburg arc of Northwest Europe slipped to 36% in 1993 from 41% in 1974, according to a study by the Port of Antwerp.