Taewoong Logistics, a South Korean 3PL, plans to enter the European haulage market by acquiring Croatian trucking company LA Trans.

Last week, Taewoong and LA Trans signed a Memorandum of Understanding, with the intention to complete the takeover by Q3.

LA Trans, a family-owned company founded by Alan Lincic and his wife in 1993, has been hauling container from Croatia’s Rijeka port to Slovenia’s Koper port since 2003. Maersk is one of its biggest customers.

Han Jae-dong, CEO of Taewoong, said: “Rijeka has the largest trading port in Croatia and is an important transportation hub for Adriatic. We expect to gain knowledge of the European inland transportation market, which has high barriers to entry, by acquiring a local company.

Rijeka will handle 409,000 teu by 2023. Maersk’s terminal-operating arm, APM Terminals is developing the $405m Rijeka Gateway Terminal in partnership with Croatia’s ENNA Group. The new terminal, which is due to open in 2019, will process 650,000 tonnes of cargo per year in its initial phase.

Mr Han stated: “We are confident that LA Trans’s operation will remain stable after the acquisition. We expect to improve the local logistics services as well as cost competitiveness through the establishment of transport infrastructure in an important logistics hub in Eastern Europe. This would be the springboard for a full-scale entry to the market.”

Taewoong also wants to take advantage of the cargo growth in the port of Koper. It handled almost a half-million vehicles and 1.07m teu last year, making it one of the busiest vehicle ports in Eastern Europe.

Mordor Intelligence predicts that the Eastern European Logistics market will grow from $126,85bn to $154.7bn by 2029, largely driven by ecommerce. It said that Eastern European countries were among the fastest growing economies in Europe. The relatively low costs in Central and Eastern Europe are also driving this growth, which has attracted companies like Amazon (Slovenia), and Alibaba (Poland).

Taewoong has grown through acquisitions in recent years. Last year, it bought Transall, a compatriot air freight specialist, for $9.5m to boost its air freight capability.