Details, details...

The Devil’s in the Details is an infamous phrase but very true in international trade.   For example how similar are the letters TT and TH written in a careless hand and casually typed without thought.   And all of a sudden the goods are sent to Trinidad and Tobago rather than Thailand.   Or as was reported today a lady found herself on a flight to Grenada rather than Granada – just the one letter different but oh so far apart.

 

Write, type and check to avoid a skirmish with the Devil….

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Hoppy Happy?

So the Australian Kangaroos beat England today in the rugby – shame!     But this is not the only thing Kangaroos are good for – did you know that their skin can be used for shoes and clothing?

Did you also know that there are lots of different species of Kangaroo?  Therein lies the problem – some of those species of Kangaroo are endangered and are therefore subject to CITES controls.   Worse still some places reject the use of Kangaroo skin of any species and therefore none can be imported or sold there.

 So if you want a bit of bounce in your footwear perhaps you should try springs!

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Giddy-up

Some of the hardest things to transport are items that are meant to move in ordinary use but can’t be allowed to move in transport.

Rocking horses are a case in point.   I mean the sort that have large semi-circular rockers with loose tack, flowing tails and manes.  

It can cost much more than people think by the time you pad out the rockers to prevent movement, protect the tail and mane with suitable wrapping and stop the loose tack moving and scratching anything else.

But the best bit is arranging delivery to a home as a surprise Christmas present even though it meant employing drivers and their helpers capable and willing to sneak in to premises late at night (with the owner’s permission of course!), break open the crate (without making a sound), unpack the rocking horse in silence, clear away every trace of packing materials and quietly drive away.  

The photo of the happy family is all the thanks needed!   

 

 

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Tea anyone?

As a nation of tea drinkers the British tend to take teacups and saucers for granted.   But there are many regulations to be taken note of before tableware can be shipped around the world.  One of the many rules concerns the composition of the paint used to decorate the items.   Some paints contain lead for example.  

The problem?  

Different countries have different opinions on how much of what is acceptable so manufacturers have to manage to meet them all or limit the distribution of their product.

Sales of tea sets tend to be somewhat reduced if you are forced to label them ‘not for food use’

Sugar anyone?


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Security

The news this week that the Port of Antwerp had its IT system compromised so that container loads of drugs could pass through undetected  is not something any of us can afford to ignore.  Security in the supply chain is increasingly important and it is often forgotten that this applies to IT systems as well as physical systems. Regimes such as the EU AEO and US CT-PAT focus on security.  A serious breach could prevent a company from attaining these Authorisations or cause it to have them suspended or withdrawn all together.

Take care!

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Wool Week

Apparently this is wool week in the UK.  This reminded me that no so long ago wool was one of the weapons in a trans-Atlantic trade war.    In a tit-for-tat battle of punitive import duty rates the USA imposed additional import duty on imports of British wool although the dispute at the route of the problem had nothing to do with wool.
 

A product of woolly thinking in my opinion.  

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Temporary tizzy!

The temporary movement of goods is a complex topic, even within the EU. 

Ask your colleagues what the EU means to them and you will get some interesting and diverse answers – booze cruises, toll roads, centralised legislation, the Euro?

Some people will tell you goods and people can move freely between the Member States. In some ways they are all correct but in others they are very misguided.  

For example how many companies know that they are supposed to keep a register of all temporary goods movements between EU countries?   The definition of temporary – under 2 years.  

Got your’s handy for the next audit? 

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Super Speed Broom

When teaching the piano I like to keep some topical pieces and so this week I started my pupils on a piece called ‘Witch on a Super Speed Broom’ by Martha Mier.   What fun!  Witches generally ride on besom brooms.  Of course such a description does not appear in the customs tariff.   All you get is a plain description ‘Brooms and brushes, consisting of twigs or other vegetable materials bound together, with or without handles’  Chapter 960310.

 

No fun at all!

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Cold?

A true tale with an unhappy ending (and no I was not responsible!).   Seafreight is not the fastest method of transport but it is cost effective for large quantities of product.  The collections by 40ft container was arranged, the space on the ship booked, documents prepared.   The container was duly loaded with product and off it sailed, destination the Middle East.    All was well.    

The container arrived, cleared customs and was delivered to the factory.   Still all OK.

Then they opened the container………   and the product flowed out like a weird waterfall.

The poor people unloading it were covered in it, the factory floor knee deep, the forklift truck in need of serious maintenance.

 

The problem – someone forgot that butter needs refrigeration!


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Teatime

I’m running a public tariff classification training course in a couple of weeks’ time (see website) and whilst adding the finishing touches to the examples (I like to keep things topical) my sister presented me with a home-made chocolate cornflake cake.    My mind immediately turned to how to classify such an item.   What were the ingredients and in what proportion?  Although called a ‘cake’ it isn’t really a cake.  Chapter 19 prepared foodstuffs is the logical choice but should it be 1904 cornflakes or 1905 bread, pastry, cakes and biscuits whether or not containing chocolate?     A quick review of the GIRs would lead me to suggest 1905 as the highest tariff code should be chosen. 

 Too late ! – It is not going anywhere it was delicious….

 

 

 

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Global procurement

Once again global procurement has hit the headlines as yet another fire in a clothing factory in Bangladesh claims the lives of workers.  The media make much of so called ‘Western’ companies buying cheap and thus apparently endangering the lives of workers.   In my view it’s not the global buying model that is broken but the lack of care and on-going attention given by the buyers to the status and functioning of the company from which they are going to buy.   

No brand does well out of media stories that it buys cheap clothes at the expense of peoples’ lives.   Written assurances are one thing but nothing beats unscheduled site visits for getting at the truth of the situation.

Is it really true that ‘Western’ buyers or the companies that they work for are so into penny pinching that they will not fund proper global procurement and prefer to take the risk that the next disaster will not implicate their brand?



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Don’t forget your intangibles!

Sounds like something you shouldn’t forget to take on holiday with you doesn’t it?

But no this is a very serious issue for exporters.

As a general idea think of intangibles as things you can’t touch.  Not because they are dangerous like nuclear waste but because they do not have a physical form for example an electronic file of software.   

Such things are still products and may still need export licences when ‘sent’ abroad by electronic means.

Perhaps they should be renamed the untouchables!

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Size matters

When exporting mirrors to the USA size matters!  

Not only must you describe the mirror and how it is framed, the material of the frame and the backing of the mirror and of course the value, but you also need the diameter of the actual mirror rather than the overall dimensions – in inches of course.

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Life’s a bowl of cherries

Baking cakes for the local Harvest Festival Fayre today I wondered about the import of glace cherries.  A quick look in the tariff revealed that Chapter 200860 was the right place to go but there were 14 tariff codes!   Information was needed on sugar content, spirit content, quantity, diameter and whether or not they were to be used in chocolate!

 

Mine just topped iced cupcakes.

 

 

 

 

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Mad Dogs and Englishmen

Qatar has been in the news recently due to concerns about the summer heat not mixing well with football.   But Qatar isn’t the only place in the world that has very hot weather and it is not only footballers and their supporters that suffer in the heat.

People forget that cargo often has to be moved about in a port or airport and that it can sometimes be left outside for hours at a time with no concern for the midday sun.   

 
Metal can become pliable and will bend if sufficiently heated – I once had to ‘rescue’ a pallet of small satellite dishes from an African airport where the cargo had warped beyond any kind of usefulness.

 What do you do to protect your cargo from the weather?

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Lost

I was working with some documents the other day which showed how misleading supposedly clear information can be.   The document was typed, clear and apparently complete and yet….     When I came to see where the shipment might be coming from I looked at the sender’s address and there was the address ending tantalisingly with Halifax.   But Halifax where?

Halifax West Yorkshire UK

Halifax Nova Scotia Canada

Halifax Virginia USA

Halifax Massachusetts USA

Halifax Queensland Australia

 

No clue – I’m sure the writer knew but such a shame they forgot that someone else might need to know?

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