The Growing Hotspot for Global Logistics
The Nordics will be hosting the FlyPharma Conference Europe this October. As a prelude, there are numerous advantages for pharma and logistics companies in the Greater Copenhagen region
Author: Paul Dhami at the highly valued DKUK member Copenhagen Capacity.
This year’s FlyPharma Conference Europe for pharma and logistics professionals is staged in Copenhagen, Denmark, moving to the Nordics for the first time.
Backing the event as sponsors are SAS Cargo, DSV, and Copenhagen Airport, and among the supporting partners is Copenhagen Capacity: the inward investment agency of Greater Copenhagen, serving industries in life sciences and logistics in a business region covering Eastern Denmark and South Sweden. The conference is an appropriate occasion to rebut any myth or tale that Scandinavia, Denmark in particular, is marred by prohibitive taxation and high labour costs.
High taxation does not apply to companies; Denmark’s corporate tax rate of 22% is one of the lowest in Europe. That is not all. uniquely among the Nordic countries, Denmark has no double taxation for companies with branches abroad. As a result, Greater Copenhagen is a highly attractive location for establishing a Nordic headquarters and for Scandinavian expansion.
Companies operating in Denmark will also benefit from a highly professional, skilled, and flexible work force. Thanks to the Danish labour market’s ‘flexicurity’ model, supported by both state and labour unions, Denmark is unique in allowing companies to continuously adjust their labour force to fluctuating market conditions at short notice and without complex negotiation processes.
Notice should also be paid to the fact that the personal income taxes help facilitate a unique level of public financing of a wide range of welfare issues including childcare, schools, medical and social services, hospitals, culture, and many other areas requiring personal investments in most other countries. This applies equally to the evaluation of wage levels in comparable sectors; for example, at first sight, Danish wages are well above levels in Sweden, but in Sweden, employers must add some 30% (compared to Denmark’s 0.6%) to wages in social costs. Employer cost compared to salary cost makes a huge difference in the business case to invest.
Easy Access to the Nordics, Europe, and the World
Adding to these benefits is Denmark’s well-connected and multi-modal transport infrastructure, comprising highways, bridges, tunnels, seaports, and railway systems, soon to be augmented with the rail and highway connection via the Fehmarn Belt tunnel allowing fast access between Denmark and Germany. With the Fehmarn connection in place in 2028, total travel time between Copenhagen to Hamburg will be reduced to two-and-a-half hours, compared to today’s four-hour drive and ferry voyage.
Even though Denmark and the Nordic countries are bordered by sea and consist of several islands, operating business in Denmark is easy, and Denmark enjoys abundant and growing connectivity to all points in the Nordic and global markets, rated third best distribution infrastructure by IMD 2018.
Denmark has 6 million inhabitants, Sweden has 10. Therefore, Sweden is the bigger market. However, looking closer into the issue, the population density changes the picture; within a 300km circle around each of the four Nordic capitals, Greater Copenhagen can reach 53% of 21, out of a total of 25, million people of the total Nordic population.
Denmark’s connectivity is also boosted by the Nordic region’s leading air transportation hub at Copenhagen Airport, serving as the prime gateway for passengers, cargo terminals, and cargo tra.c with a growing high-frequency network of domestic, regional, European, and inter-continental routes served by SAS and other international airlines, as well as leading integrator and express carriers such as FedEx, UPS, and DHL.
Global express and airfreight forwarders have consolidated their Nordic operations at Copenhagen Airport. For example, Kuehne + Nagel, FedEx, and DHL recently announced plans to build a new fully automated global logistics warehouse for DKK one billion.
To improve the strongholds of the airport, Copenhagen Airport has partnered with Copenhagen Capacity to attract new investments into an ambitious expansion plan. Moreover, the newly established organisation Air Cargo Community will engage with companies to build the next generation of Europe’s Air Cargo Hub.
In support of the pharma industries, cargo handling companies at Copenhagen Airport are going for the International Air Transport Association’s CEIV pharma certification, already in place at Spirit Cargo Handling and SAS, soon to arrive at Worldwide Flight Service’s new pharma-dedicated warehouse at Copenhagen Airport. The WFS Pharma Centre will also be GDP certified in a couple of months. SAS is also CEIV certified for temperature-controlled pharma cargo shipments.
