newsworthy
U.S.-based freight forwarder, said at the time that his company’s Hong Kong office had reported that a 4,000-ton backlog of
outbound freight had developed at Hong Kong Air Cargo
Terminals, and that electronics shippers like LG were paying spot-market prices of $6 per kilo (roughly 2. 2 pounds) from Hong Kong
to London, up from $3 just four weeks earlier.
To guarantee capacity and keep a lid on pricing, big shippers have
been scrambling to grab charter space. Daniel Wolf, director of
logistics and purchasing for Boston Apparel Group, said at the conference that big air-freight users like Apple Computer and Sony
Corp. had chartered space on about 60 flights from Asia through
mid-November to ensure capacity for holiday shipping.
Why were shippers that normally book under long-term contracts suffering the caprices of the spot market? When rates were in
free fall, many forwarders and their shipper customers were reluctant to lock in pricing under blocked space agreements with carriers, said a vice president of a large European freight forwarder
interviewed at CONECT but who asked not to be named. That was
a smart move—for a while, he told DC VELOCITY. “They didn’t want
to commit to rates and then see them go even lower. They made a
big miscalculation.”
—Mark Solomon and Toby Gooley
; Excellent offices. Associated Material Handling has been nominated for an Award of Excellence from the Chicago Chapter of the
National Association of Industrial and Office Properties (NAIOP). The
company was recognized for the development and construction of
its new 87,000-square-foot corporate headquarters in Addison, Ill.
accolades
; Toy story. Exel, a North American supply chain solutions provider,
has announced that its Groveport, Ohio, facility has earned the
Fulfillment Center of the Year award from Toys “R” Us. Exel was recognized for order-fill accuracy, shipping efficiency, and inventory
accuracy.
In addition, Exel Transportation, the company’s freight brokerage
and transportation management services unit, has earned the
Special Services Carrier Award from Ocean Spray Cranberries Inc.
During the evaluation period for the award, Exel moved 3,800-plus
loads for Ocean Spray, delivering them as scheduled 98 percent of
the time.
; Celebrating diversity. Third-party logistics service and technology provider D.W. Morgan Co. has received the 2009 Diversity and
Collaboration Award from Cisco Systems. This is the third time the
company has received the award.
; Rail recognition. Railinc Corp. was recognized as an “
Industry-Driven Technology Company” at the 2009 North Carolina
Technology Association 21 Awards.
10+ 2 enforcement
deadline nears
Rehearsal time is over. After a year-long grace
period for the enforcement of its Importer
Security Filing requirements (better known as
“ 10+ 2”), U.S. Customs and Border Protection
(CBP) is about to get serious. As of Jan. 26, CBP
will bring the hammer down on companies that
are not filing the detailed report on the origins
and chain of custody of imported merchandise.
Incomplete, erroneous, and late reports will also
be subject to penalties and rejection.
As the enforcement date draws nearer, there is
cause for optimism, said Richard DiNucci, director, security filing for CBP. Speaking at the 8th
Annual Northeast Cargo Symposium of the
Coalition of New England Companies for Trade
(CONECT), DiNucci said that by November, the
reject rate for the 3 million-plus monthly filings
had declined to just 2 percent. The most common mistakes have been data-input errors and
duplicate filings; one large filer suffered 15,000
rejections in two days due to such errors, he said.
Compliance requires significant changes in the
type of data importers collect and provide to customs authorities. Importers and their customs
brokers need to work out how and when to get
supplier information they’ve never needed
before, and they’ve had to change their electronic entry-filing systems to accommodate the new
data and deadlines. Global trade management
software vendors have been only too happy to
help; virtually every vendor has an ISF filing module to assist importers and customs brokers with
the considerable programming changes that are
required.
From the day the regulations were announced,
international traders have speculated that the
additional data would not appreciably improve
security. DiNucci tried to put those concerns to
rest. “The data are giving us what we need relative to cargo security,” including identification of
un-manifested cargoes, he said.
CBP has been conducting informational sessions here and abroad, including one in Shenzhen,
China, that DiNucci said drew 650 attendees. The
agency also has updated the Frequently Asked
Questions section of its ISF Web page, and has
posted current information about ISF at
www.cbp.gov/xp/cgov/trade/cargo_security/
carriers/security_filing/. Send specific questions
to security_filing@general.cbp.dhs.gov.
