Prime Minister Mark Rutte on Monday visited two transport entrepreneurs affected by the corona crisis. He was the guest of Lievaart and Daily Logistics Group in Westland. The entrepreneurs informed him about the loss of work.
Both companies gave the prime minister an insight into the current situation at their companies. Of the 58 trucks owned by transport company Lievaart, 40 are now idle. The company transports flowers to Italy, but following the imposition of a quarantine in that country, flower transport is at a complete standstill. The transporter was able to use its drivers for a few weeks to transport food during the hamster peak at major supermarket chains. Lievaart also even sent empty trucks to Italy to pick up toilet paper. These were only temporary assignments.
Mother's Day
Because of Easter, this is usually the busiest time of the year for transporters. It is also usually very busy around Mother's Day on the second Sunday in May. Lievaart hopes that the situation in Italy will make it possible to deliver flowers again by then. Lievaart says it took about a decade to emerge from the 2008 credit crisis. The company soon expects to need another 10 years to crawl out of the coronadal.
Read also: Logistics Valley helps affected Gelderland entrepreneurs
Chips for fast food chains
Transporter Daily Logistics has 500 trucks and transports frozen products within Europe, such as chips for fast food chains. Demand slumped 50 per cent in recent weeks, and the company also provides transport for supermarket chains, which continues as usual. The company is pinning its hopes on the continued transport of fruit and vegetables to the UK. But it also expects the transport of sea containers of avocados imported from Peru to decline.
Rutte complimented the sector during the visit and tried to give the entrepreneurs heart. "Let's hope that we can limit the damage and it will all return to a bit of normalcy in the Netherlands. We will work on that."
Refining emergency measure
TLN president Elisabeth Post, who took part in the prime minister's working visit, is positive about the speed with which the cabinet introduced the temporary Emergency Work Retention Bridge (NOW) measure. "Keeping transport companies and the jobs within this sector is crucial to keep the Netherlands running, even after the corona crisis," Post said.
However, she expressed the need to refine the scheme. Companies that are part of a larger group are sometimes not entitled to support while they are in trouble and their staff cannot get jobs at other parts of the group. Companies that depend on one season, such as flower transporters, are also not helped because the calculation for support is based on an average of a whole year.
