Hupac closed 2021 with a record turnover up by +12.4%

Hupac has announced that in 2021 material investments, equal to 24.4 million Swiss francs compared to 43.4 million in the previous year, they were relatively modest due to the postponement of investment projects due to uncertainties related to Covid.

In the period 2022-2026 the Swiss company aims at an increase annual +7% of the volumes transported, to reach a end of period a traffic volume of 1.6 million shipments road, with an increase of 40% compared to 2021, and to this end the Management Board approved a investments of 300 million. Hupac pointed out that at the center of this growth strategy there is the strengthening of the core business on the north-south axis and the expansion of the network on axes with great growth potential such as the south-east, the south-west and the north-east of Europe. In addition, with regard to connections with the maritime transport, Hupac aims to connect the network to ports Italians and the ERS railway network from the ports of Hamburg, Bremerhaven and Rotterdam.

As for investments in Italy alone, the Swiss company has recalled the initiative with Mercitalia Logistics to create two new large terminals in Milano Smistamento and Piacenza, whose construction is resumed with completion of the work planned in the 2024, while for the Novara CIM terminal, of which the group has assumed the management through the subsidiary Combiconnect ( of 11 October 2021), Hupac plans a major expansion of the capacity with construction work started this year that include the extension of the tracks from the current 600 meters to the European standard of 740 meters, new entry and exit tracks and high performance gantry crane. To this is added the project for a new terminal in Brescia that is still in phase of preparation.

For 2022 Hupac expects a decline in activity operational, with an economic slowdown, caused inter alia from increasing disruptions to supply chains global, which - explained the company - is also felt in Hupac. In the first quarter of 2022, the Swiss group recorded a traffic growth of about +4%, while in April the volume of traffic was below the level of the previous year, decrease - the company specified - determined by the three weeks of construction on the Rhine Valley route that have led to a halving of transport capacity. Beyond supply chain disruptions and problems caused by work on railway lines, on the progress of the year however, other unknowns weigh: "the war in Ukraine, further disruptions in supply chains global due to the current pandemic situation in China and the next increases in interest rates due to high inflation - ha taken over the chairman of the Hupac group, Hans-Jörg Bertschi - make 2022 a year full of challenges. Forecasting is difficult in this situation." However for the whole of 2022 Hupac predicts a growth in traffic as a percentage figure and a positive economic result.