CEO’s Message: New year - Hope and Challenges

Dear Sir /Madam,   

 

First of all, I hope you had a safe and healthy holiday season with your family and friends.  

 

We have just started a new year as well as a new phase of the pandemic, and with great sense of responsibility and confidence, we confirm again our commitment to do our best and ensure a good response to the most emergent situations. Thus, we guarantee that supply chains and logistical operations which are essential to our country's economy will not stop.  

 

Since the first moment of the pandemic, we have put in place preventive measures and actions to ensure safety and health conditions for our employees, partners, customers and suppliers, while simultaneously ensuring the protection and survival of our company, keeping the business and the services we provide.  

 

It was a year marked by the celebration of our 40 years, which will be recorded in our history as another year full of great challenges and obstacles. I take this opportunity to thank all our employees, customers and partners, for their trust during these 40 years of work, effort and commitment, always with a clear concern to do more and better.  

This year 2021 will certainly be one of hope. The moment we have been looking forward to, the Covid - 19 vaccine, has finally arrived so that we can all, gradually, start having hope and getting back to our normal life. Although this new year has just started, it is already a year of challenges and overcoming, and in this new phase of the pandemic we shall still have some difficult months ahead, probably a few more confinements. Therefore, we must continue to comply with all the actions and measures that we have implemented from the very beginning, and keep our sense of responsibility at all times.  

 

Looking back on the year 2020 we are aware of our active and critical role in keeping supply chains. Rangel's effort to combat this pandemic began on March 18 when the State of Emergency was declared. In the following weeks our needs boomed, and we had to use chartered cargo flights to get the necessary and urgent goods from China. We’ve worked 24 hours a day to find solutions in order to mitigate the negative impacts of Coronavirus on international transport. In addition to the many transports that we did by air cargo, we’ve also directly hired several charter planes to bring goods from China to Portugal. Some of them were the World’s largest planes, such as the Antonov 124 and we’ve carried and delivered ventilators, masks, and all types of personal protective equipment.    

 

In the pharma area, there was clearly a huge demand for some medicines and health products, twice as much the number of units shipped, and this led us to strengthen our plans in order to cope with the increase in demand. Due to the pandemic, e-commerce has felt a huge increase and we also had to respond to this new way of shopping and to the growing consumer flow.  

 

This new reality demanded an increased responsibility from our side. We found ways to keep deliveries moving and to implement dynamic contingency plans in order to manage and mitigate supply chain disruption and keep on providing an essential service for society.  

 

Throughout this journey, we have never shifted focus from business continuity, and we have always known how to respond to the most emergent and challenging situations. Some of our business areas were stopped for a while and some others have faced difficult times. However, they have been reinvented and overcome those challenges. 

 

During 2020, we kept on investing, both in physical infrastructure (warehouses and fleet), and in technological and software infrastructure. We followed the plan previously set and we’ve started our own Rangel branches in Mexico and South Africa, which are doing quite well, despite the obstacles.  

 

These investments took place in a particularly difficult year, but we keep our strong will to improve and strengthen our commitment towards our customers and the marketplace.  

 

Unfortunately, in 2020, we’ve lost two great Directors, two Rangel Ambassadors, whom we miss and to whom we pay tribute!  

 

The vaccine is the solution for Covid-19 and its logistics are a key success factor. Therefore, Rangel Pharma has gone through an internal process to prepare teams and proceedings, and we are now very proud that Rangel is playing an important role in this historic moment, as one of the transportation partners for the Covid-19 vaccine.  

 

We have transformed challenges into opportunities, and all the hurdles we had to overcome made us stronger. We feel that we are better prepared for the future.   

 

Our mission is and will always be to provide you with good service. Now is the time to look forward and believe in the future, always showing a sense of responsibility and objectivity.   

 

We wish a New Year with lots of victories, and trust that our partnership will remain successful.  

 

Please accept my best regards and wishes for an excellent 2021. We believe that this new year will be much better!  

 

Best regards, 

Chief Executive Officer   

Vice-President of the Board