AN INCREASE in fish exports to Asia helped boost Wiseway Group’s performance in the first quarter of the 2021 financial year.

In results just announced, the prominent Australia-Asia freight logistics operator reporting unaudited revenue of $31m for the quarter, up 53% or $10.7m on the previous corresponding period.

Chief executive Roger Tong said trade activity and transaction volumes from China, particularly via major e-commerce platforms, remained high.

“We have significantly diversified our revenue stream, increasing the revenue component from new businesses to 29%,” Mr Tong said.

“Pleasingly – complementing the core business growth, was a continued step-up in performance across all our new business divisions thanks to a number of new major customer wins, including large Australian exporters of salmon and exporting into a wide range of countries other than China, for example in South-East Asia, as well as Japan.”

Mr Tong said the standout was the stellar performance in its perishables business, of exporting fresh produce, live seafood, chilled seafood, chilled fresh milk and chilled meat; with a revenue of $4.2m during Q1 FY21, a seven-fold rise compared with Q1 FY20.

Their core business – air freight inbound and outbound – generated revenue of $22.2 million in Q1 FY21, an increase of 24% on Q1 FY20.

“We have implemented operational ‘COVID-19 safe’ procedures, and have been able to continue operations and service customers across Australia, including those in Victoria throughout the period of the State’s border closure,” he said.

“As a result our interstate road transportation service, Airtruck, saw revenue growth of 76% to $0.9 million on the previous corresponding quarter.”

Mr Tong said demand for logistics services remained high.

“However, due to the unpredictable nature of the global pandemic, this may vary as the situation develops over time,” he said.