The accession of Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, the Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Romania, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia to the European Union (EU) have opened up growth opportunities in the region. Lower labour costs and investment incentives are prompting western European multinational manufacturers to move eastward to establish their production sites. The high levels of investment by western European and global manufacturers and retailers are likely to spur the growth of eastern European accession countries’ logistics markets.

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The European Commission has granted clearance under the EU Merger Regulation to the acquisition of sole control of ACR Logistics Holdings BV (ACR) of the Netherlands by Kuehne + Nagel International AG (K+N) of Switzerland.

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TNT Express, a leading global provider of supply chain services, will deploy Xterprise?s TraXTM Visibility, a real-time supply chain execution solution. The system will support high value electronics movement from China to Europe. The solution was deployed initially as a pilot in 2004. Because of the pilot?s success for TNT and an initial customer, the system has been greatly expanded.

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Hutchison Port Holdings (HPH) has entered into a joint-venture agreement with Shanghai International Port (Group) Company Limited (SIPG), APM Terminals, COSCO and China Shipping Group to jointly develop the Yangshan Deep-water Port Phase II Project (Yangshan Phase II). The contract signing ceremony was held at the New Jin Jiang Hotel in Shanghai.

A.P. Moeller-Maersk, Hutchison Whampoa and three other companies said Tuesday that they would invest 4 billion yuan in Shanghai’s Yangshan port as global trade increases cargo demand in China. The amount is equivalent to $495 million.

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Koninklijke Frans Maas Groep N.V. (”KFM”) and DSV A/S (”DSV”) announce that they have entered into talks about a possible merger of the two businesses. DSV has informed KFM that it is considering making an indicative cash offer of EUR 38 per share including any dividend for 2005 and that a majority of KFM’s shareholders have agreed to support such possible transaction. Talks are at an early stage but they are serious and constructive in nature.

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Royal Vopak announces the transfer of a portion of its long-term interest-bearing receivables not relating to core activities to a financial institution, with part of the proceeds being used to repay debt.

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This holiday, consider giving your supply chain a gift. We suggest giving it an asset you probably already own: insight from customer scorecards. It?s the gift that keeps on giving. Consider that companies that are better at demand sensing and new product launches actively use customer scorecards in supply chain initiatives.

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Deutsche Post World Net (DPWN), which recently announced it would acquire the U.K.?s Exel, is unlikely to try to acquire TNT?s logistics operations. (TNT announced earlier it would exit the contract logistics business and concentrate on mail and express.)

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Enterprise software company Oracle is seeking to make headway in the Indian logistics and transportation software market, with the acquisition of G-Log, a logistics management platform provider for industry.

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Changes in market conditions, supply constraints, demand fluctuations and other variables mean that business forecasts will never be perfect. However, working together with i2 Technologies, Inc., businesses have the ability to optimize their forecasting processes and adopt strategies that can mitigate risk and help them better react to demand.

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