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Speaker 1: Now if you're looking for assigned the economy is recovering.

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Speaker 1: Here it is. Freightways has posted a strong first half result.

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Speaker 1: Profit is up by seventeen percent, revenues up by nine percent.

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Speaker 1: The chief executive, Mark trowhere is with us.

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Speaker 2: Now home Mark, Hi, Heather, how are you?

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Speaker 1: I'm very well, thank you. Now can we take it

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Speaker 1: from this that the recovery is underway?

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Speaker 2: Look, I think it's just started in New Zealand. It's

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Speaker 2: a good result in that spit of market share gains.

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Speaker 2: Australia going really well for us, But in New Zealand

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Speaker 2: you're just starting to see customers trade a little bit

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Speaker 2: up on what they did last year. So yep, early

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Speaker 2: stages good stuff.

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Speaker 1: Now why is your oversized business doing so well?

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Speaker 2: I think it's a niche where it's often called ugly

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Speaker 2: freight and a lot of carriers don't necessarily like it.

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Speaker 2: So if you're delivering a bit of flat pack furniture

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Speaker 2: your house, or you've ordered a bike and you want

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Speaker 2: that delivered, it's stuff that's a bit too big for couriers,

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Speaker 2: it's a bit too small for freight for orders. So

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Speaker 2: we're filling that niche and yeah, not too many direct

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Speaker 2: competitors in that space.

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Speaker 1: And the food hospitality sector, from what you're seeing, is

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Speaker 1: still laying the rest of the economy.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I think December was better, but look at it

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Speaker 2: has certainly been a bit softer. We deliver a lot

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Speaker 2: of more expensive food. It's salmon, it's good cuts of steak, gormet, dairy,

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Speaker 2: all those types of things, and the domestic economy it's

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Speaker 2: been a bit tougher. A lot of those a lot

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Speaker 2: of those producers are sending that stuff offshore because Keywis

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Speaker 2: aren't consuming as much of it.

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Speaker 1: I see. Now, what is your concern about the border tax?

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Speaker 2: Equality? Is my concern so fundamentally the tax or the

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Speaker 2: fee or the levy, the customs fee, I think is

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Speaker 2: the way they talk about it. From our point of view,

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Speaker 2: if you bring an item over the border and it

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Speaker 2: needs to be checked by customs, you should pay the

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Speaker 2: same fee for that item, regardless of whether it goes

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Speaker 2: through a commercial operator like ourselves or a FedEx or

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Speaker 2: a UPS or whoever, or whether it gets directed through

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Speaker 2: a mail stream so or where after, simply as a

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Speaker 2: level playing field, and so.

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Speaker 1: How much more are you paying than the likes of

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Speaker 1: New Zealand post.

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Speaker 2: Well, the average item is around about half a kilo.

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Speaker 2: We'll pay two dollars twenty one an item, although the

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Speaker 2: customer will if it goes through the mail half a

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Speaker 2: kilo will be about sixty cents. So we're paying close

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Speaker 2: to four times as much for exactly the same item,

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Speaker 2: regardless of whether you know, depending on what stream it

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Speaker 2: goes through.

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Speaker 1: It doesn't sound like a lot adds up.

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Speaker 2: Look a lot of a lot of the lot of

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Speaker 2: the Chinese e commerce players, they will shift their volume

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Speaker 2: for fifty cents, let alone the difference of a dollar sixty.

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Speaker 2: So yeah, it can. It can add up, and it

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Speaker 2: can be material, and you don't make a whole lot

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Speaker 2: of profit on these items in the first place, so

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Speaker 2: it's not as if you can afford to subsidize the difference.

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Speaker 1: All right, Mark, listen, thanks for talking to us. Appreciated

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Speaker 1: marktro who's the Froatway CEO. For more from Hither Duplessy

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Speaker 1: Alan Drive listen live and news talk said Be from

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