F E AT U R E ALL THE WAY FROM MOSCOW! New Affiliate M&TM Freight is one of the latest companies to join the FIDI community. Reinier Reints, Director of Business Development Russia & CIS, talks about the local market in Russia REINIER REINTS, DIRECTOR OF BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT RUSSIA & CIS AT M&TM FREIGHT FF: Tell us a bit about the history of your company. RR: M&TM Freight, founded in 1995, originally handled full container deliveries from the UK to Moscow but, over the ensuing three years, began offering full container deliveries to and from Russia. Owner and General Manager Mikhail Mishustin and his wife, Tatiana Mishustina, met at university in 1983. The environment at the time was more welcoming to capitalist enterprises and the creation of businesses that contributed to the growth of the Russian economy. But national and global markets are fickle, dependent on the fortunes of other countries, as well as the political climate. In the wake of the financial crisis of 1998, and as the demand for full container services declined, the couple naturally began to broaden M&TM Freights range of services. Since then, weve been doing groupage, full container, air freight and multimodal shipments of commercial, household and diplomatic cargo, locally and internationally. drop in the amount of imported goods. In 2014 and 2015, we saw amass exodus; thenumber ofGerman citizens inRussia has more than halved and the US and British expats fell by 80 per cent after the geopolitical crises, Federal Migration Service data shows. Theeconomic downturn andincreasing political andcultural isolation have transformed anexpat community that thrived during the1990s and2000s into a fraction of what it once was. Faced with sanctions and a stalled economy, many Western companies have reduced their presence inthe country, andRussian companies have cut their foreign staff. Forthose who earn rubles, thevalue oftheir salaries has halved indollar terms in the past two years. But now a lot of companies and people have adaptedmore or less to the new situation and figures show that firms are investing again, and slowly some expats are returning although not in the numbers they were previously. FF: How has the countrys moving industry evolved over the past decade? RR: As described many times already, the market in Russia was affected when import duties were imposed in 2010 by a new law. Since then, there has been a significant FF: Where do you see your biggest opportunities forgrowth? RR: As a company, we should always be aware of the global processes that are surrounding us: some will give us vast opportunities for development in the future. Moving artworks requires white glove packing Inside M&TM Freights warehouse 74 FF290 pp74-77 New Affiliate M&TM Freight.indd 74 One of the firms fleet of lorries WWW. F I D I . OR G 13/03/2019 12:10