DSV Road: 2023, the best year for import and export in agriculture in Romania

2023 saw intense import and export activity for agricultural firms, with a 30% increase in demand for transport services for field-specific goods, fertilizers, and agricultural machinery, reports DSV Road, part of the Danish DSV Group, the third largest transport company in Europe. Thus, 2023 is the best year for the import and export of goods for Romanian agriculture, with companies in the field preparing ahead of time to protect crops in a year with extreme drought.

The highest demand for transport services in agriculture was registered in the counties of Ilfov, Brașov, Galați and Dâmbovița.

“The growing demand for the transport of fertilizers and agricultural machinery is a sign that the agricultural sector in Romania is bearing fruit and solutions are needed to make agricultural activity more efficient. At the same time, impressive amounts of fertilizers, especially organic, were imported to combat this year’s acute drought. This increased demand indicates an optimistic outlook for the industry and opens new business opportunities in the field of transportation. The automotive industry has the most intense transport activity. Still, agriculture is the new engine of growth in transport, and DSV Road is here to support the development of this field through groupage transport and bulk transport,” says Sergiu Iordache, Managing Director of DSV Road.

Thus, import activity for agriculture represented 20% of the entire transport activity, the most imported goods being agricultural machinery, and fertilizers, especially organic, seeds, pesticides, and herbicides. But the agricultural export activity is constantly developing, the most transported goods being sunflowers, corn, and wheat for sowing, to countries such as France, Hungary, Italy or Spain. The agricultural sector is in the top 10 sectors that register an increase in the export of goods.

The most used transport service for agricultural goods is groupage, which allows the transport of the desired amount of goods, from 10 kg to 3,000 kg per truck, together with the goods of other companies, reducing transport expenses by up to 80%, and intermodal (road + rail), used to reduce the amount of CO2 emissions by up to 70%.

Regarding the profile of agricultural companies that use groupage or intermodal transport, 30% are SMEs, with agricultural activity in the production of cereals, vegetables, or fruits.

Moreover, of the total number of DSV Road customers, 70% are represented by SMEs, especially from the fields of FMCG, retail, clothing, chemical industry, pharma and agriculture. Romanian SMEs export increasingly large quantities to Europe, thus registering a 20% increase in the quantity of goods transported to foreign markets in 2023 compared to last year. The most transported goods are from the categories of food products, clothing and footwear and light industry.

Romania is one of the most important markets in the region for the Danish group DSV, present locally for almost 30 years. Thus, for 2023, the DSV Road company expects a 10% increase in business, after last year it recorded a turnover of 70 million euros, 40% higher than in 2021, due to the increase in the number of customers and demand for all types of transport, especially groupage and intermodal.