DPD is expanding capacity for its fast-growing business in the Baltic region with a new depot atthe Lithuanian port of Klaipeda for international imports to be distributed in Eastern Europe and
the CIS region.In 2007, DPD increased its import volumes to the Baltic countries of Latvia, Lithuania andEstonia by 40% to around ten million parcels. This helped the GeoPost subsidiary to expand its CEPmarket share in the Baltics from 23% to 28%. In domestic shipping within the Baltic States thethree companies DPD Latvija, DPD Lietuva and DPD Eesti have a market share of as much as 46%. “DPDhas tripled its parcel volumes in the Baltic region since 2004,” stated Arnold Schroven, CEO of theinternational DPD organisation.
In order to cope with this volume growth, DPD opened a parcel sorting centre in thefree-trade zone of the port of Klaipeda in western Lithuania in May. The depot has a total of 46loading bays and its current capacity is 2,000 parcels an hour, which can however be expandedsubstantially. The centre is intended specifically to handle the rising volumes of internationalshipments which arrive at Klaipeda by sea and by rail from all around the world.
“DPD is integrating itself more and more into global logistics chains,” Schroven explained.“For example, at the new DPD sorting centre in Klaipeda we ensure that parcels which arrive bycontainer from Asia are sorted as fast as possible and then distributed throughout the entireBaltic region.”
Klaipeda has a dual logistics function as Lithuania’s only commercial port and with animportant rail link which leads via Vilnius, Minsk and Kiev to the Ukrainian port of Odessa (adistance of 1734 km covered in 55 hours). In addition, it links up with an important trans-Europeanroad corridor (IXB) which connects the countries around the Baltic with the Black sea region. Thesignificance of Odessa and its hinterland connections is increasing because maritime links withTurkey and other countries in Central Asia have expanded dramatically since the political openingup of the Russian Federation.
DPD said that it has grown strongly in the Baltic region in recent years. It has establisheda rapidly growing network, based on an operational infrastructure featuring three hubs, 29 depotsand a fleet of 540 vehicles. Within the three countries DPD has a workforce of 750 employees backedup by self-employed transport operators. In Riga the company opened the largest sorting centre ofthe whole Baltic region only last year, with a sorting capacity of 6,000 parcels an hour.
