World Transport Overseas (WTO), which is headquartered in Eastern Europe and has branches in Bulgaria, China, Croatia, Greece, North Macedonia, Serbia and Slovenia, was the 2020 winner of Bulgaria’s Company of the Year award in the service sector and represents one of the fastest growing companies in the logistics sector
World Transport Overseas (WTO), which is headquartered in Eastern Europe and has branches in Bulgaria, China, Croatia, Greece, North Macedonia, Serbia and Slovenia, was the 2020 winner of Bulgaria’s Company of the Year award in the service sector and represents one of the fastest growing companies in the logistics sector By continuing in accordance with the VISION 2030 plan, the decision was adopted to expand the group. We should be opening offices by the end of the current year in Taiwan, Korea and Ningbo [Chinese industrial port city], as well as new Black Sea basin offices in Romania, Georgia and Armenia – announces WTO Sales Manager Bogdan Gavrilović.
The WTO opened a branch in China in 2020 and representative offices in Skopje and Thessaloniki in 2021. Are you planning to expand further?
– We’ve already opened offices in Priština and Piraeus this year, which will certainly contribute to even higher quality services and more competitive prices. We are particularly proud of the opening of our office in the Port of Piraeus, which has already been operating successfully for three months and through which we will be able to offer our clients an express service, in the areas of both FCL and LCL shipments.
With the opening a new direct maritime collective line from the Port of Tianjin to the Balkans, we have continued implementing our expansion strategy, as one of the leaders of the Central and Eastern European market. Our aim is to provide the possibility of more affordable and faster supplying of goods from the Far East to clients in Serbia and the wider region. In addition to this, another important factor in the improving of services is the new line for supplying goods from the Far East to Southern, Western and Central Serbia, as well as transport to Belgrade itself.
Our aim is to provide the possibility of more affordable and faster supplying of goods from the Far East to clients in Serbia and the wider region
This is a service that operates via the Port of Thessaloniki and intermodal transport via Niš to the final destination. This service has great potential and possibilities, and we will strive to bring it to life as soon as possible, thereby unburdening other supply lines.
We are proud that we’ve expanded our cooperation with our long-term partner JAS and become its exclusive agents in Thessaloniki and Skopje. This kind of partnership with such a worldwide freight forwarding company brings numerous benefits to our company, but first and foremost to our clients, because we will be able to offer them additional, better-quality services around the world, under even more favourable terms.
We assume that last year’s figures and reports have been underscored and are ready to present. Are you satisfied?
– The group’s total turnover for 2021 was a record-breaking 53 million euros. When it comes to the number of TEUs [twenty-foot equivalent units] transported, in both import and export operations, the total amount exceeds 40,000. We are also recording a major upsurge in containerised transport (LCL), i.e., in the number of cubic metres of goods delivered via our main transhipment ports of Varna, Koper and Thessaloniki, which stands at 83,000 cubic metres. Air transport was our main area of investments and the focus of the group in the previous period, which is best reflected in our transporting of more than 1.5 million kilos of goods during the previous year.
Are relations with employees still among the most important factors for WTO?
– It is common knowledge that WTO employees have constantly undergone supplementary training and additional business specialisation since the opening of the office. The latest such training relates to work with the previously introduced Microsoft Dynamics NAV program, which we are successfully concluding while simultaneously preparing for the introduction of the new CRM solution. WTO has a constant need for new high-quality and highly educated personnel, which we also present at the employment fairs we often participate in.