The Key Problems
21.01.2008 (18:07)
Customs cargoes registration, lack of infrastructure and bureaucracy are becoming the key problems of the Russian economy having influence on development of car industry in RF North-Western region. Representatives of autoconcerns and the plants producing car components are assured that only the state can solve these problems. Otherwise the traffic jams on the Russian-Finnish border are ineradicable.
According to the experts, the main obstacle is customs clearance, it is faced by all companies including the ones owning temporary storage warehouses located on the territory of enterprise. So, American concern Ford Motor Company, which put into operation its plant in Vsevolozhsk (Leningrad region) in 2002, has problems with customs registration of its goods. “We regularly face the problem of complicated registration of a huge quantity of documents, and long decision-making of the Federal Customs Service representatives”, “Ford Motor Company” noted.
According to representatives of the enterprises-importers, the process takes much time because of hand-written goods registration which exists everywhere. “We receive 90% of details from the North America. And we face problem: it is necessary to draw up six different big documents for each supply. All documents should be certificated. Some documents are not only difficult, but simply strange”, the Operating Director on the joint deliveries organization of Magna GAZ Group Joint Supply Organization Albrekht Bohov complains.
The companies are ready to carry out preliminary e-declaration of all supplies, but the documents are processed on border all the same manually! “Nowadays a part of documents transferred from Finland to Russia are electronic. However it is necessary to involve a bigger quantity of documents in this process to accelerate and simplify their registration. This measure will allow crossing the border faster. Therefore, in our opinion, the main factor which delays crossing the Finnish-Russian border is paper document circulation”, the leading expert on forwarding and customs registration of cargoes questions of the Finnish railways (VR Ltd) Minna Lehtinen says . It paralyses the process of import the goods in the country and brings about big queues on the Finnish-Russian border.
Thus, many experts say that railway delivery can’t compete with sea or road transportation. There are several reasons.
“While current tariffs operate, we cannot compete with trucks. After all even if we transport cargo with zero profitability, the price for our transportation will be higher than the price for transportation in trucks. The Government support and intervention of Federal Tariff Service will help to solve this problem”, the Head of strategic development department of "RailTransAuto" company Ekaterina Kulbaka says. According to her, the company can compete if cargo is transported to Ekaterinburg or Rostov-on-Don, for example, i.e. it is possible to win at the expense of logistic shoulder length. “However the basic part of cars follows to Moscow and we are not competitive on the route yet”, E.Kulbaka complains.
Representatives of Finnish enterprise VR Ltd share her opinion, explaining, that tariffs are the main factor interfering railway cargo transportation.
The decision on concentration of all customs procedures at goods destination point will allow to increase the volume of railway cargo transportation. “There is another problem which prevents growth of railway cargo transportation volume: there are no developed procedures for transport within the limits of customs good transit from border to destination place. It is necessary to create simplified customs transit scheme. Nowadays cargo transported to Russia for a consignee, for example, from Moscow, can be delivered to some railway station, from which the consignee has to transport it”, Head on marketing of VR Ltd freight traffic department Matti Andersson says. According to him, customs transit must include other kinds of delivery, for example, it is necessary to allow to transship goods to trucks on one of railway stations and transport it to a temporary storage warehouse where the customs clearance could be held.
by Maria Shevchenko
Print version
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The Customs Union of Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia started work on January 1st, 2010 and faced a few puzzles, which are to be solved in a very short time, by July 1st, 2010, when the common Customs Union territory will be created.
The rapid fall in rail transits which started last autumn became the reason to update practically all of RZD’s plans for 2009. At the same time participants in this market sector hope for stabilization and traffic increases during the second half-year.
New ferry line was opened in Ust-Luga port in January, 2012. Now ships will go by route Russia - Finland - Denmark. Ferries of Finnish company Finnlines will transport cargoes, including containers from Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Norway.
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RZD JSC network contract can be formed in 2015. This was announced at the plenary discussion of the “Transport Service Market: cooperation and partnership” IX International Conference by Valeriy Reshetnikov, Senior Vice-President of RZD JSC.
