Tag / inland ports

by Mike Poverello

Nigeria – President cautions Customs and Port authorities over Dry Port facility

Kaduma Dry Port

On Thursday, 4 January 2018, Nigeria’s President, Muhammadu Buhari, inaugurated the Kaduna Inland Dry Port and warned the Nigeria Customs Service and port officials against frustrating the effective use of the facilities. Inaugurating the facilities in Kaduna, Buhari said the customs and the port officials must make the facilities work and not to frustrate business, commercial and industrial enterprises with unnecessary bureaucracy.

It remains for Customs and Ports officials to make these facilities work and not to frustrate business, commercial and industrial enterprises with unnecessary bureaucracy and inflicting on them delays and hardships, thereby defeating the object of the whole exercise as has happened in the past.

According to him, the hinterland business community has waited for too long for such facility that has tremendous potentials to ease the way of doing international business for the interior based importers and exporters. He said that the development of Inland Dry Ports was an important factor in the nation’s economic development efforts.

As Ports of origin for exports and ports of destination for imports, the Inland Dry Ports will accelerate the implementation of our economic diversification policy. “The concept of Inland Dry Port has gained widespread importance with the changes in international transportation as a result of the container revolution and the introduction of door-to-door delivery of cargo.

It provides importers and exporters located within the nation’s hinterland, especially industrial and commercial outfits, access to shipping and port services without necessarily visiting the seaports. “It also enables them to process clearance of their import cargo and take delivery of their raw materials and machinery close to their places of business.

President Buhari also said that the Dry Ports would provide exporters the much-needed facilities to process, package, consolidate and forward their exports to their customers all over the world without having to physically be at the seaports. According to him, this replicates the port economy in the various centres where the Dry Ports are located inland thereby generating employment and contributing to the ease of doing business.

He said in addition to the Kaduna Inland Dry Port, six other Inland Dry Ports in Ibadan, Aba, Kano, Jos, Funtua and Maiduguri, which had also been gazetted, were at various stages of completion. He congratulated the Kaduna State Government, the Federal Ministry of Transportation, Nigerian Shippers’ Council as well as the hinterland importers and exporters on the inauguration of the facilities.

The president also commended the initiative of Nigerian Shippers’ Council towards promoting the provision of these modern transport infrastructural facilities. He, however, urged the Concessionaires of the other six Dry Ports to emulate the Concessionaires of the Kaduna Dry Port by accelerating work on theirs so as to ensure speedy completion of the projects.

He said that with the full complement of the seven Dry Ports, congestion at the seaport and traffic gridlock in the port complex would be eliminated.

“Consequently, the cost of transportation and cost of doing business will be reduced,’’ he said. He lauded the efforts of the Kaduna state government for facilitating the establishment of Kaduna Inland Dry Port.

According to him, the provision of access roads and other utilities to the Dry Port by Kaduna State Government is worthy of emulation by the other Dry Ports host State Governments.

He urged relevant stakeholders across the public and private sectors, particularly Nigeria Customs Service, Nigerian Ports Authority, Nigerian Railway Corporation, Shipping Companies and Agencies, Seaport Terminal Operators, Clearing and Forwarding Agents, Road Haulers and importers and exporters to utilize the facility optimally. Source: article originally published by Vanguard (Nigeria), 4 January 2018

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by Mike Poverello

WCO Workshop on Inland Depots in Lao PDR

inland-port-7The World Customs Organization (WCO) organized a National Workshop on Inland Depots under the sponsorship of the Customs Cooperation Fund (CCF)/Japan and the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). It was held from 20 to 22 September 2016 in Savannakhet Province, Lao People’s Democratic Republic.

Twenty six Customs officers from the Lao Customs Administration participated in the workshop, along with guest Customs experts from The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Japan and JICA. Mr. Somphit Sengmanivong, Deputy Director General of the Lao Customs Administration, opened the workshop. He highlighted the importance of Inland Depots as a national strategy to secure his country’s economic growth and sought participants’ active participation in the discussions on this topic.

Presently, there is no clear definition of “Inland Depot” and many similar terms, such as Dry Port, Inland Terminal, Free Trade Zone and Special Economic Zones, are used in the international logistics. During the three-day workshop, participants discussed the functions and a possible definition of Inland Depot from a Customs perspective.

AmatiComment – Inland container terminals serve as important hubs or nodes for the distribution and consolidation of imported and export destined cargoes. There are 16 Landlocked countries in Africa, which signifies the importance of hinterland logistics development and its consequential impact on regional trade groupings. Consequentially, it behooves governments to understand and support the logistics supply chain industry in maximizing inland transportation (multi-modal) infrastructures to achieve a common and mutually beneficial economic environment. Furthermore, the more facilitative these arrangements, the better opportunity there is for success and longer-term economic sustainability.

The WCO Secretariat made presentations on international standards for relevant procedures, including Customs warehouses, free zones, Customs transit, inward processing, clearance for home use and temporary admission. Experts from The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Japan described their national and regional experience of Customs warehousing, and Customs transit procedures. The JICA expert presented the bonded procedures applied by neighbouring countries to Lao People’s Democratic Republic. Lao Customs administration explained their national system for Inland Depots and a logistics company of Lao PDR shared its expectations on inland depots.

On the last day, participants discussed the challenges and possible solutions to enhance the functional and efficiency of Lao’s Inland Depots. Possible solutions, such as the use of modern information technology, further cooperation with the private sector, clear regulations on relevant procedures, coordinated border management and international cooperation were considered. Source: WCO

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by Mike Poverello

Outlook and reliability of African ports in question

Port of Mombasa

Port of Mombasa

The reliability of African ports for import and export traffic is likely to deteriorate before getting better, according to Portoverview.com which advises importers, exporters and traders in planning their supply chain to and from the continent.

Speaking earlier this week at the Cool Logistics Conference in Cape Town, Africa. Portoverview.com’s Victor Shieh said almost 2,000 incidents were recorded on its portal over the last 16 months, with an average of one weather-related incident per day for South Africa alone.

Current congestion issues will remain a problem whilst port infrastructure is renewed over the next years. However, we see African hinterland connections beyond the terminal gates as the biggest challenge facing shippers,” Shieh emphasised.

In a study presented at the conference, road and rail construction as well as investment in port infrastructure were identified as the main positive developments recorded on the portal.

Greenfield sites along the African coast are cited as having the greatest potential to improve cargo efficiency. Projects such as the 2.5 million teu site at Lekki in Nigeria and the 5 million teu expansion at Tangier-Med, in Morocco, will require similar investments on the intermodal leg to succeed.

Recent research by SeaIntel Maritime Analysis, which is co-owner of the portal, revealed that African exporters have no more than an average 60% chance that their containers will arrive on time in Asia with the percentage falling to 55% for Europe.

“For shippers – especially ones who produce and distribute perishable products – that’s a real challenge” commented Morten Berg Thomsen, a shipping analyst at SeaIntel.

Helen Palmer, director, Sutcliffe’s Maritime, a UK-based shipping agent told Lloyd’s Loading List.com that as far as ro-ro traffic was concerned she was not aware of any serious congestion and delays into African ports

“I can’t speak for box traffic but in the case of ro-ro into ports such as Mombasa, in East Africa, transit is extremely smooth with trucks waiting on the quayside as soon as the ship’s ramp comes down. Dar es Salaam, is perhaps a little less straightforward but certainly nothing major,” she said. Source: Lloydsloaddinglist.com

by Mike Poverello

Transit – Addressing the plight of Landlocked Countries

AmatiThirty-one countries belong currently to the Group of Landlocked Developing Countries: 15 are located in Africa, 12 in Asia, 2 in Latin America and 2 in Central and Eastern Europe. The lack of territorial access to the sea poses persistent challenges to growth and development of these countries and has been the main factor hindering their ability to better integrate in the global trading system. The transit of export and import goods through the territory of at least one neighboring State and the frequent change of mode of transport result in high transaction costs and reduced international competitiveness.

For more details on LLDCs visit – Landlocked Developing Countries (LLDCs)

The 2003 Almaty Programme of Action highlighted the link between the ability of LLDCs to harness their trade potential and the state of the transport infrastructure and the efficiency of trade facilitation measures in neighboring transit countries and called for international support in favor of LLDCs. The United Nations General Assembly in its resolution 66/214 of 22 December 2011 and resolution 67/222 of 3 April 2013 decided to hold a Comprehensive Ten-Year Review Conference of the Almaty Programme of Action in 2014 with a view to formulating and adopting a renewed development partnership framework for LLDCs for the next decade.

It is expected that the ten-year review will provide an opportunity for: (i) assessing progress made in establishing efficient transit transport systems in landlocked developing countries since the adoption of APoA in August 2003, and particularly after the midterm review of 2008; and (ii) agreeing on actions needed to sustain achievements and address challenges in overcoming the special problems of landlocked developing countries around the world.

It would appear that this programme very much supports the creation of inland ports connected to the seaports by means of secure and bonded facilities – within the ambit international law, i.e. WTO (Trade Facilitation Agreement) and the WCO (Revised Kyoto Convention). The question arises as to whether an inland port located in Botswana, Zimbabwe or any adjoining country be able to demand such rights where a ‘corridor’ country or country providing international seaport access to LLDCs does not observe or accept international transit principles?

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by Mike Poverello

China leads shake-up in distribution methods

Out of respect for copyright, I would encourage all logistics followers to visit this link to learn more about a significant shift occurring in the distribution of containerized goods. Some food for thought considering local conditions in South Africa which currently appear to marginalize (if not discourage) inland localisation and multi-modal distribution of goods between the hinterland and major air and sea ports in Southern Africa. Source: FT.com

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