Shippers Link - April 27, 2016

July 1st 2016 is fast approaching with the need for you to be up to speed with reference to your obligations as a shipper, freight forwarder, 3rd party operator or in some cases all three.

I have been banging on about this for nearly 18 months now but I get the feeling that most pushed it into the background thinking they would address it later or were sure that either they already complied or their service providers would fix it.

APSA together with FTA and CTAA have initiate a series of Forums held in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and later this month, one in Fremantle. I attended the Melbourne Forum as a panellist and went armed with a series of questions that many were asking but was pleasantly surprised when answers to all the queries were provided in the various presentations.

All areas including Regulatory, Legal Obligations, Safety Issues, Port Facilitations and various service Providers solutions were canvassed including a session from 1Stop on their revision of the PRAs to facilitate the declarations and finishing with a Panel Discussion with participation from the audience assembled.

The feedback I received from shippers was that in many cases they were either currently compliant or needed a minimum of system tweaking to be compliant. Those with the biggest headache are the freight forwarders who are noted as the shipper on the BLs as they are notionally responsible for compliant weight declaration. Their brief is now to ensure that their customers and those in the chain preceding them are providing timely information that they in turn can attest to being correct.

It is important that you select the method that best suits your business and adds minimal disruption to your workflow. For those who did not attend one of these forums or who did attend and would like the download the power point presentations to educate the appropriate staff in your business can I suggest that you go to the FTA 

Website and click on the article on SOLAS on the front page, which will take you to the presentations: www. FTAlliance.com.au

AMSA are reviewing issues around frequency of check weighing at terminals, application of fines for incorrect declarations (est. $9000.00 per incident) and a consultative process in the initial stages that advices shippers what is needed to overcome the deficiencies in their declarations. 

Having said that AMSA pointed out that the severity of individual incidents and the frequency will determine their attitude. We expect to hear further on their plans in this area soonest.

In the meantime, we suggest that you make sure that you are compliant and take advantage of the opportunity to begin trials in May when 1Stop update the PRAs to suit. 

As was announced to all and sundry after the AGM, the members of APSA voted to undertake a process to merge with the Freight & Trade Alliance (FTA).

The first step is to draft an Agreement that will provide the vehicle for progressing the partnership. This is being looked at as we speak. We will keep our members updated on progress and a timetable of the milestones as we progress over the coming weeks.

We see this as a great opportunity for APSA to grow in size and relevance within the shipping community. The critical mass that this partnership will generate will mean that we will be listened to more intently than I suspect is the case currently. 

The opportunity to build on advocacy in the areas of education, recruitment, marine legal advice, interaction with governments both state and federal, interaction with Port Authorities and Stevedores, etc., that we currently enjoy are limitless thus providing APSA members a diverse range of options to enhance their business endeavours.

We can now avail ourselves of an enhanced set of information technology, which will be available to members in the coming months. This alone will keep them abreast of what is happening and/or available to them within the industry. It is intended that APSA members will be able to avail themselves of the daily P: (03) 85450498 I M: 0407317817 I E: robert.coode@auspsa.com I W: www.auspsa.com electronic bulletins generated by the FTA almost immediately. I will email details to members individually within the next week.

The merged entity will cover imports, exports and aligned logistics services providing a large and powerful tool for members to utilise. 

Your executive committee together with the FTA has commenced the process of joining the two entities and will begin to roll out the benefits to the members of both over the coming weeks and months. 

I travelled to Canberra recently with Travis Brooks – Garrett from FTA to talk to Department of Infrastructure & Transport (Marine division) and the ACCC about our proposed APSA/TFA partnership, how it would affect shippers, what was the reasoning behind the merge and what, if any restrictions there currently are around all thing related to Part X, that would impact on the partnership. It appears that from a DIT prospective that as long as APSA is seen to provide the same level of attention to all things related to Part X as it does today, then all is OK.

The second item discussed was related to how the ACCC and DIT proposed to carry out the government's wishes for industry consultation over the coming months before a final decision is made on the future of Part X. We outlined APSA's thoughts on how we see Part X or its replacement should be structured to best serve the industry in the future. Our stance being consistent with both submissions we made to the Harper Review Panel. We came away from that meeting feeling that the ACCC have a much better handle on how the shipping industry operates and their willingness to listen to our concerns.

Our second meeting was with officers of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) more as a meet and greet to establish lines of communication and we came away with a contact locally who Travis and I will meet with in the net couple of weeks. We are looking at possible trade facilitation opportunities and funding. More on that as it unfolds.

I am currently on the trail of 3 prospective new members and have no doubt that our intended partnership with FTA will enhance the model put before them.

On the sponsorship front PoMC have agreed to extend their commitment for 2016 and NSW Ports will come on board from 1st July 2016. We are also in discussion with two other prospects, which we expect to finalise one way or another within the next few weeks. 

A few of our sponsors have asked how the merger will affect them and my answer to them and indeed all our sponsors is that you will be afforded the opportunity to engage with a larger target group to spread your message related to the services you have on offer. 

1. It has been well documented that NYK are pulling out of the Australasian trade and their reasons why. Considering the length of time that they have spent in this trade it should be a wake up call to shippers that the face of liner shipping in this part of the world is changing and shippers themselves need to take stock of how they will be affected in the months and years to come.

2. The China Shipping group (now includes Cosco), CMA CGM, OOCL and Evergreen have agreed to form the Ocean Alliance to operate in the Asia to Europe trade. The alliance will be subject to regulatory scrutiny from the USA, China and the EU prior to beginning operations. This is another example of the changing face of shipping as it is yet another alliance formed by lines to protect their hold in the various trade lanes and to position themselves to be able to reverse the current supply – demand situations on the berth.

3. The TFA recently notified APSA in writing and publish in the LLA the intention of the members of the Discussion Agreement to impose a GRI of US$100 per general TEU as from various sailings during the month of April 2016. Whilst this decision is not binding on the member lines of the TFA it is the first such GRI to be applied for some considerable time. P: (03) 85450498 I M: 0407317817 I E: robert.coode@auspsa.com I W: www.auspsa.com. Be warned that it is another sign of the change in attitude beginning to sweep through shipping lines and whilst it may not be universally applied this time around in this particular DA there is more to come.

4. Latest news is that Hapag – Lloyd and UASC are to merge. If this comes to fruition it will make the merged entity the 5th largest liner services company globally with an expected 1.47million TEUs available for hire. Putting UASC's fleet with larger vessels (6 X 18800 TEU capacity & 7 X 15000 TEU capacity) amongst it together with the Hapag Lloyd fleet (largest being 10 X 13100 TEU capacity) makes this new entity able to compete against Maersk, MSC and CMA-CGM. Word is that the Headquarters would be situated in Hamburg.

5. From the Korean Times.co.kr we read that the Hanjin Group have decided to filed for receivership and give creditors authority to manage the company of the groups shipping unit. They appear to be looking for a creditor led restructuring. The main creditor being the Korea Development Bank. Not sure how this will play out or what the short-term affect will be for shippers using Hanjin currently.