France-Turkey freight forwarder: MATHEZ FREIGHT opens in Sete

Why is the port of Sete essential for trade with Turkey?

Benefiting from a very favorable context (see our article), Franco-Turkish trade represents more than 20 billion euros, up for 30 years, and by more than 20% for 2022 alone.

The port of Sete handles around half of all sea and road traffic between France and Turkey, well ahead of Fos-Marseilles and Le Havre (70,000 TEU each).

Investing massively (€570 million in investments since 2008), the port offers the most efficient equipment: refrigerated terminal, quayside electrical connections, crane, hopper and crushing units for clincker traffic, multimodal sea/road/rail/river platform, horizontal loading technology on the rail platform, etc. It is growing rapidly, with 5.6MT of traffic in 2023, up 6% in volume and 15% in sales.

Sete is the only European port, along with Trieste, to handle Ro-Ro with Turkey.

Since the arrival of Danish shipowner DFDS in 2020, Ro-Ro traffic has grown steadily: with 5 calls a week between Yalova and Sète, it has reached 130,000 trucks by 2023, and is benefiting from the establishment of a rail hub with 3 round trips a week to Calais, 1 to Paris and 1 to Poznan.

In addition to goods transported by truck or container, Sete also sees the passage of exceptional convoys for the transport of boats (sailboats or motorboats), construction and industrial sites, etc.

What are the main goods flows through Sete?

A large part of the Franco-Turkish trade passed through Sete:

• New vehicles (100,000 by 2023), both buses and passenger cars
• agricultural products (grain, peat, etc.).
• Exceptional convoys in the nautical and industrial sectors.
• The above products: textiles and clothing, pharmaceuticals and chemicals, cosmetics, consumer goods, machinery and equipment…
• Cement, with 300,000 tonnes by 2023 arriving by sea and being dispatched by rail and river.

The port of Sete also serves the flow of goods between Turkey and Spain, Great Britain, Belgium and Holland, thanks to Ro-Ro, which is faster than sea transport and cheaper than air transport.

In addition to Turkey, the port of Sete handles onshore wind turbines , which are a major source of traffic  from other European countries, as well as international transfers by road  to Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria.

Why choose MATHEZ FREIGHT,  specialized freight forwarder for Turkey?

The management of France-Turkey traffic calls for a high level of organization and responsiveness; only specialists can do this.  When a container arrives from China, we are informed 6 days in advance; for Turkey, it’s the day before! You need a specialized team, with operators capable of managing sales, operations and customs for this particular destination.

When a ship loaded with containers arrives in Marseilles at the weekend, we can deliver on Monday at 6am.

This implies anticipating document flows and mastering the CCS (cargo community system) for customs files. You have to be able to anticipate and avoid problems to ensure perfect fluidity.

MATHEZ FREIGHT has set up a team specialized in Turkey, based in Sete and Marseilles, to manage all France-Turkey imports and exports.

The opening of an office in Sete completed our air freight (CDG, Nice, Lyon, Marseilles-Marignane) and sea freight services (Fos-Marseilles, Le Havre).

MATHEZ FREIGHT is thus the only forwarder with offices at all key points to offer air, sea, road and rail transport between France and Turkey.