Drewry launches new fuel advisory services for Shippers and Forwarders January 13 , 2020

LONDON: Drewry Supply Chain Advisors, the ocean freight cost benchmarking and procurement support division of Drewry, is pleased to announce the launch of a new range of fuel advisory and management services designed exclusively for shippers and forwarders. The new services extend Drewry’s advisory capability at a time when fuel is becoming an increasingly important part of transport costs and increasingly subject to regulations.

“Following implementation of the IMO 2020 low-sulphur rule change we have already seen extreme variations in fuel charges between carriers on the same tradelane, for similar ship sizes – even shared vessels,” said Philip Damas, head of Drewry Supply Chain Advisors. “On the Asia-to-US East Coast route, for example, across a sample of five carriers, we saw some had increased their BAFs by as much as 40% in 1Q 2020, whereas others by just 15%.”

Drewry has been working closely with shippers and industry representative organisations such as the European Shipper’s Council (ESC) in recent months on a number of initiatives aimed at improving fuel cost transparency and contractual practices, such that shippers can reduce their exposure to excessive BAFs and have greater control over and understanding of the fuel portion of ocean freight rates.

“We anticipate confusion over the new charges introduced by carriers will continue for some months yet as the market fully adapts to the new fuel standard,” said Mr Damas. “By helping review their existing processes and implement a standard BAF mechanism, covering measurement and adjustment periods, fuel prices and index formulae, we believe shippers and forwarders can gain both clarity and more control over fuel prices – essential pre-requisites to achieving more competitive and successful outcomes from their carrier negotiations.”

Drewry continues to monitor and report developments closely via Drewry’s Benchmarking Club, which gives exporters and importers exclusive access to average contract bunker charges by tradelane and Drewy’s new low-sulphur reference bunker index tracker (NB you must register and login to access this page).

Revamp of SEZ policy to meet challenges faced by exporters

NEW DELHI: The Commerce and Industry & Railways Minister Piyush Goyal chaired a meeting recently in New Delhi to review the remaining recommendations of the Baba Kalyani report on Special Economic Zone (SEZ) policy of India. The meeting was attended by members of the Baba Kalyani Group along with representatives from the Department of Revenue, Department of Legal Affairs and legal firms.

Commerce and Industry Minister examined the revamp of the SEZ policy with a view to meeting the global challenges being faced by Indian exporters. Discussions were also held to find a way out for implementation of the remaining recommendations in order to facilitate the Ease of Doing Business in the present global market scenario.

The recommendations which have been completed include review of specific exclusions proposed in NFE computation in light of Make in India initiative, sharing of duty exempted assets/ infrastructure between units to be allowed against specific approval, and formalization of de-notification process for enclaves and delinking its present mandatory usage for SEZs purpose only.

The other implemented recommendations are support to servicification of manufacturing zone, allowing manufacturing enabling services companies, broad-banding definition of services/allowing multiple services to come together and flexibility to enter into a long term lease agreement with stakeholders in Zones in line with the State policies and the application for constructing minimum built up area by Developer or Co-developer beyond a period of ten years from the date of notification of the SEZ on merits of each case.

Rupee depreciation from Middle East events may not help exports: EEPC

NEW DELHI: In the wake of adverse geo-political situation in the Middle East, Indian rupee may be witnessing some volatility but depreciation of home currency does not always help exporters, as a contrarian trend was witnessed for several months in engineering exports during the current financial year, an EEPC India analysis has shown.

 

The analysis of the trade data till November, 2019 during the current fiscal pointed towards quite a few months when the rupee saw a depreciation but exports did not go up; rather a declining trend was witnessed.

For instance, while depreciating rupee for April, May, June, July and August should have helped engineering exports to grow, reverse happened in this period. But for May, exports contracted during all these months. The fall in shipments during August was quite severe, by close to nine per cent even as Rupee depreciated by 2.30 per cent during that month.

 

"The currency play can make a difference along with several other factors, but it is not the only factor in securing our competitive advantage. Thus if rupee depreciation results from troubled geo-political situation in the Middle East, it may not be of advantage; rather the trade 

disruption can be much more severe for shipments to the region" said EEPC India Chairman Mr Ravi Sehgal.

 

The currency advantage can occur if a persistent trend is maintained over a long period of time. However, that too has to combine with several other factors like cost of raw material and capital and the transaction cost.

 

Engineering exports aggregated USD 51.07 billion during April-November 2019-20 as against USD 52.15 billion during the same period last fiscal, registering 2.06 per cent decline.

 

Due to global slowdown, the shipments to Middle East too were contracting. "The disruptions can cause further setback," the EEPC India cautioned.

With less than 10% tariff lines regulated, India working on 252 new standards

NEW DELHI: India is one of the most unregulated markets among major trading countries, with regulations on less than 10 per cent of its national tariff lines.

Compared to India’s 452 technical and sanitary standards notifications, the US has 8,105 notifications, China has a total of 2,900 notifications, Brazil has 3,913 notifications, the EU has

2,974 notifications; while Australia has 888 notifications in place, according to figures compiled by the Commerce Ministry.

Now, the Government is working on new standards to redress the situation. It is considering 252 new technical regulations on items such as chemicals and pharmaceuticals, toys, footwear, sports good, telecom equipment and industrial equipment, which will apply on both imports and domestic manufacture, according to a Government official.

'New technical regulations on 252 items are being considered by the Centre to be framed by the Bureau of Indian Standards. The Commerce Ministry is talking to different line Ministries, including Chemicals and Pharmaceuticals, MeitY, Heavy Industry and DPIIT, and also specific regulators. Work has already been initiated on 67 items,' the official said.

Decreasing tariffs While tariffs have been dropping across the world due to trade liberalisation, many countries have replaced these with non-tariff measures in the form of sanitary and phyto-sanitary (SPS) norms and technical barriers to trade (TBT).

Commerce Minister urges Trade body & Financial institutions to help SME exporters

NEW DELHI: Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal has asked Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI) and the Credit Guarantee Fund Trust for Micro and Small Enterprises (CGTMSE) to establish a framework that will help them process SME loans faster along with providing insurance cover to SME exporters. Goyal, in his meeting with industry bodies including CII, FICCI, Assocham, SME Chamber of India and PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry to resolve MSME issues, stressed on MSMEs’ adaptability to adapt to the market change and cater to the export market given their smaller size, Commerce Ministry said in a statement.

Access to affordable bank credit and delayed payments are among the major challenges for India’s MSME sector having around 60 million MSME units. The Minister, in the meeting, ‘examined the possibility’ of large buyers making entire payments to SMEs against goods purchased in order to ensure their working capital is not blocked.

Goyal, on SMEs part, urged the manufacturers to churn out high-quality products of international standards for the sector’s exports to likely become part of the global value chain. The Minister had last month also urged for increased SME exports given the tariff concessions under the Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) signed by India gives export opportunities for products including those from SMEs. Japan, South Korea and some ASEAN countries offer such concessions on SME products including readymade garments, leather goods, processed foods, and engineering products such as auto components, Goyal had told Lok Sabha. MSMEs contributed nearly

50 per cent to India’s total exports, according to the MSME Ministry’s 2019 annual report.

Apart from making access to finance faster and boosting exports, Goyal also underlined the importance of 8 million women-led small businesses.

Such MSMEs may get support from the Government’s e-commerce platform GeM by getting them on-board and allowing them to sell to Government Departments, PSUs and organisations. GeM currently has over 66k micro and small sellers out of more than 3 lakh seller base.

Govt working for short, long term measures to strengthen Indian Economy: Prime Minister

NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently said that the BJP-led Government was working towards short-term and long-term measures to boost the economy and these will benefit the present as well as the coming generations.

 'The work is on to take short-term and long-term measures to strengthen the Indian economy. Decisions are being taken that will not only benefit the present generation but the next generations as well,' Modi said at an event here. He said that an environment has been created to work with integrity and transparency in the Country. 'This environment has provided the Country the courage to set big goals for itself and achieve them on time,' Modi said.

 'We have made efforts to ensure that the Indian industry moves forward without fear in a transparent environment and creates wealth for the Country and itself. More than 1,500 old laws have been abolished to ensure that industrialists are not trapped,' he said.

 The Prime Minister said the Government is working to ensure investment of over Rs 100 lakh crore for creating 21st-century infrastructure in the Country and bringing ease of living.

 'Initiatives have been taken to promote innovation in India and that has seen us jump 20 ranks on the Global Innovation Index in just 5 years. We've been one of the top FDI-attracting countries in the last few years and it is an achievement,' the Prime Minister said.

 He urged entrepreneurs not to let negativity impact them and move forward with renewed energy.

 'Today's India wants swifter transactions with more use of technology. In just three years, the widening network of UPI has made it come true. Today, the Country is doing safe transactions 24X7,' he said.

COSCO SHIPPING Lines : Excellence of Ocean Quality

EIJING: The development of the Container shipping industry is changing rapidly, and the goal of COSCO SHIPPING Lines to deliver value to customers has always remained the same. Back to the essence of shipping services, we strive to provide the world's best shipping and integrated logistics solutions; Customer-centric, we adhere to the original intention of service and share a win-win situation with customers, informs a recent statement from the company.

“On September 1, 2016, COSCO SHIPPING Lines took the lead in officially launching the nine service standards covering the entire process of transportation services worldwide to promote the improvement of service experience in all business segments. In the past three years, global customers have truly felt the excellent service of COSCO SHIPPING Lines”

“At the beginning of 2019, focusing on "returning to the essence of shipping", COSCO SHIPPING Lines launched the "Quality First 2019" customer service improvement project, focusing on customer needs, comprehensively innovating the service model from top to bottom, optimizing service processes and continuously improving the customer experience.

“COSCO SHIPPING Lines is accelerating the pace of digitalization, upgrading the global integrated information system, and promoting the application of blockchain technology in the fields of shipping security and convenience. The aim is to further improve data integration, create convenient and visual service products, and optimize globalization. , End-to-end logistics service solutions; Focus on  customer needs, in the next three years, we will fully upgrade service standards to provide a better service experience.

As the world's leading provider of shipping and integrated logistics solutions, we will take the value proposition of our customers as our value pursuit, grow together with our customers, and continue to create value for our customers, concludes the company statement.