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New Solutions for Speeding Goods to Market from China Revealed at Savannah Trade and Logistics Conference

Industry Specialists Share Expertise, Outline New Transport Processes that Remove Variability, Accelerate Product Velocity through Long Supply Chains from China, other Asia Markets to the U.S.

SAVANNAH, Ga. - June 04, 2007

New hybrid transportation networks that link up logistics operations in Asia, ocean container shipping and day-definite, rapid-response, domestic U.S. freight delivery systems are shrinking global supply cycles and bringing goods to market with unprecedented speed and reliability, helping businesses gain market share while creating hard-dollar savings in the “delivered” cost of product.

Those were some of the takeaways from a presentation this week in Savannah at the Journal of Commerce-sponsored China Trade and Logistics Conference by Edward P. (Ned) Moritz, vice president of branding for less-than-truckload (LTL) motor carrier Con-way Freight. Moritz outlined the market opportunity and customer response to new services introduced for China imports, joining a panel of experts on sourcing from China at the early June event. Con-way Freight is the LTL subsidiary of global transportation and logistics company, Con-way Inc. (NYSE:CNW).

“Many factors influence transit time for freight coming to the United States from Asia — especially China — and maintaining acceptable service levels becomes a bigger challenge for American retailers every day,” said Moritz. “With reliability a higher priority than price for many importers, it’s never been more important to find innovative and cost-effective solutions to deliver products to the United States from Asia on time, every time.”

Since air freight is prohibitively expensive for all but a few importers who ship very high-value goods, many are finding day-definite less-than-containerload (LCL) shipping the best available option, according to Moritz. When combined with a less-than-truckload (LTL) service, the results are even more impressive.

“Day-definite LCL-LTL service offers the benefits of lower costs than air freight plus faster delivery than standard ocean carriage,” Moritz stressed. “LCL and LTL companies are joining forces to offer customers that sought-after combination of peace of mind and improved bottom line.”

In August 2006, Con-way Freight launched OceanGuaranteedSM — a time-definite surface freight transportation service in partnership with APL Logistics and APL servicing ports in Hong Kong, Shanghai and Shenzhen, China. Due to customer demand, the service has since been expanded to include ports in Japan, South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan. Click here to read the Journal of Commerce 4/2/07article.

Importers are realizing significant cost reductions and reliable product delivery from the hybrid LCL-LTL service launched by Con-way and APL Logistics. One customer in the homebuilding industry, which formerly relied on air freight, has achieved significant cost savings and improved supply chain reliability since it started using the service last fall, seeing its freight charges fall nearly 80 percent per shipment, with an overall savings of more than $157,000. Another customer, an importer and distributor of Halloween merchandise, incurred heavy costs in 2006 for air freight to expedite delayed shipments, and ended up absorbing more than $1 million in customer charge-backs because product arrived late. For the 2007 season, the distributor has switched its import shipping to the OceanGuaranteed service, and expects to eliminate last year’s excessive transport- and charge-back-related costs based on OceanGuaranteed’s 15-day transit time from Asia and its current performance record of 98 percent on-time service.

The third annual China Trade & Logistics Conference was organized by the Journal of Commerce and hosted by the Georgia Ports Authority. It took place June 4 and 5 at the Savannah International Trade and Convention Center.

About Con-way Freight
Con-way Freight is the industry’s leading less-than-truckload (LTL) freight transportation company, providing guaranteed, day-definite regional and transcontinental service through a network of 440 service centers in the United States, Canada, Mexico and Puerto Rico. Based in Ann Arbor, Mich., Con-way Freight offers LTL freight delivery across North America, as well as delivery in the United States for international less-than-container (LCL) ocean shipments from Asia through its OceanGuaranteedSM service. Con-way Freight is a certified FAST highway carrier and is ISO 9001- and 14001-, C-TPAT/PIP, ACE- and CSA-certified. Con-way Freight is a subsidiary of Con-way Inc. (NYSE: CNW), a $4.2 billion freight transportation and logistics services company and FORTUNE magazine’s “Most Admired Company” in transportation and logistics for 2007. For more information, visit…www.con-way.com/freight.

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