“This year we process here in Lappeenranta about 3 million car tyres that are going from here to Russia and CIS countries. We have a busy winter behind us, and the summer will be busy as well”, says Pekka Salminen, the local manager of CHS Logistics Oy.
Salminen has worked earlier as the logistics manager of Karelia Upofloor and has now been responsible for the operations of CHS Logistics Oy in Lappeenranta for little over a year.
The company has operations in the fields of transporting, forwarding and storing at the Mustola free trade area. In addition to that IT services for company’s own use are under development. The services would allow the customers to follow the travel of their goods and also the storage status in real-time.
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CHS Logistics occupies 49 000 square metres or five hectares of roofed space, in all 11 buildings in Mustola. Two thirds of the whole space is used by the tyre operations. Half of the turnover of CHS Logistics now comes from tyre business. “Yokohama tyres come from Japan and Philippines to Kotka in a boxes for sea transportation. We store them here in Lappeenranta, stud the tyres here and send them to Russia according to the orders.”
Studding brings jobs
The Finns have a good reputation in studding business which has increased amount of work in Mustola. At the moment seven stud machines are in use, and 40 employees are studding in two shifts six days a week.
“We have studded now 4-5 years, and the volumes have been increasing all the time. This year the goal is to stud 600 000 tyres and take care of the quality assurance of the studding.”
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Japanese customer was found already 10 years ago. During the first year
of cooperation 80 000 tyres were sent via Lappeenranta. From that the
amount has increased to over 3 million.
The company operates in the area administered by Lappeenranta Free Zone, which is a company owned by the city of Lappeenranta. The premises of the area are currently owned by a real estate investment company from Norway. “We operate with the free warehouse status, which means that the customers are excused from value-added tax.”
It is quiet in neighbouring premises of CHS Logistics in Mustola. The recession in Finland and Russia can be seen. However, CHS Logistics has full speed on. “In a way we are an exceptional company, because usually logistics services are seen as local services. But we export the Finnish work. During the last year I have emphasized this also to the authorities of the area.”
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