SINGAPORE, Aug. 18 (Reuters) – Swiss logistics group Panalpina said it was ''cautiously optimistic'' that China's economy would remain strong for the next few years, driving global demand for air and ocean freight.

Panalpina, along with rivals Kuehne & Nagel and Deutsche Bahn's Schenker, are slowly recovering from last year's global downturn, which saw air and sea freight markets plummet by as much as 20 percent.

''We are cautiously optimistic for the next two quarters that 2010 will be a good year for the economy and a good year for us as well,'' Panalpina's Chief Operating Officer Karl Weyeneth told Reuters on Tuesday at the opening of a new oil logistics facility in Singapore.

''Looking beyond 2011, we don't see any signs yet that China or Asia will be falling back into trouble.''
Panalpina sees the new facility at Loyang, which increases the company's warehouse space in Singapore to 30,000 square metres, as a way to gain a greater share of Asian oil exploration equipment storage, customs clearance and forwarding work, especially from Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia.

Weyeneth declined to say how much the project cost.

Panalpina earlier this month reported a 36 percent increase in air freight forwarding volumes and a 19 percent jump in ocean freight in the second quarter, helped by a recovery in the automotive, hi-tech and telecommunications industries.

''We now have freight rate levels where the industry can make some money, which is important to everybody,'' Weyeneth said. Air freight rates were expected to continue its rise as capacity tightens with airlines retiring fuel-inefficient planes, he said.

But the outlook for ocean freight rates was less certain.

''The big question is what is going to happen in the fourth quarter in the Far East Asia and East European trade lanes, which are the biggest in the world,'' Weyeneth said.