And they say Germans have no sense of humour!

We have received news that major German shipping line Hapag-Lloyd has announced plans to increase rates on the Asia to Europe trade by US$500 per TEU in June and on top add a peak-season surcharge.

Surely this is a (not particularly funny) joke? 

We are fully aware that shipping lines in the major liner trades are making insufficient returns but this is mainly due to their own folly (as usual). Like sheep they all placed orders for ever larger ships and flooded the trade lanes with additional capacity at the same time as demand fell.

Hapag Lloyd are adopting a King Canute attitude (*)

The only thing that will cause rates to rise to a more sustainable level is if the lines make a concerted effort to cut capacity to bring it in line with demand. It’s basic economics.

(*) - for those unfamiliar with English history…. King Canute the Great, the legend says, sat on his throne on the seashore, waves lapping round his feet. Canute had learned that his flattering courtiers claimed he was “So great, he could command the tides of the sea to go back”.

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We are saddened to hear the recent news that one of our competitors, Eggar Forrester Agency Ltd, a well established and respected port agency company operating in the Port of London has become the latest casualty of the recession.

Eggar Forrester Agency Ltd was part of the Eggar Forrester Group which can trace it’s origins back over 100 years.

The agency division based at Tilbury had been operating since the early 1980’s and was mainly involved with handling shipments of forest products from North America.

Wavecrest Ltd  provides a 24 hours, 365 days a year agency services for vessels calling at the port of Tilbury and other berths on the River Thames as well as support for offshore wind farm and construction projects in the Thames Estuary.

Please contact us for further information or assistance. E-mail: glen@wavecrest.co.uk or Tel: 0870 720 1130

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Captain Richard Philips, Master of the US flag container ship Maersk Alabama has been rescued earlier today by US Navy special forces based aboard the guided missile destroyer USS Bainbridge.

The Maersk Alabama had been hijacked by pirates in the morning of the 8th April off the coast of Somalia whilst en-route to Mombasa, Kenya.

Captain Philips from Vermont, USA who heroically exchanged his own freedom for that of his fellow crew mates had been held hostage in one of the ship’s life boats. On Friday 10th April he bravely tried to escape from his four armed Somali guards by jumping into the sea but was unfortunately quickly recaptured. 

Today snipers from the US Navy SEALs based aboard the USS Bainbridge were able to kill three of the Somali pirates and capture the fourth enabling Captain Philips to be released.

Wavecrest Ltd strongly applauds the robust action taken by the US Government and would ask that others take the same stance.

Pirates have been able to operate practically with impunity around the Horn of Africa and this has lead to significant increases in the cost of shipping to ports in East Africa, the Arabian Gulf, Indian Sub-Continent, Far East and higher marine insurance premiums.

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At Wavecrest Limited  we have many year’s experience of advising clients new to importing and international trade.

Over the next few weeks we will be writing a series of articles on our blog which we hope you will find helpful and informative.

Our first helpful tip: - Do not forget to do your market research before commiting to buy goods from an overseas supplier.

We are contacted on an almost daily basis by clients, new to importing, advising us that they have found a “new” product for the UK market on the web, or they can source XYZ product at a particularly low price in the Far East and are going to make a killing.

Finding a supplier on the web is the easy part but only half the story!

Have you considered the following questions?

Is anybody else already selling the same product in the UK? - we’ve probably lost count of the number of clients who were going to be the first to import mobile phone accessories, bathroom fittings, electric scooters etc

Are you actually allowed to import the product into the UK? - for example does the product comply with UK safety standards?  Do you need an import licence?

What is the duty rate applicable? - for some products very high tariffs remain in place and even anti dumping duties which make the landed price no cheaper or indeed even more expensive than home produced goods. (We will go into duty rates in more detail on a later post)

Is the product suitable for  the UK market? - we had a client that imported very good quality flooring materials from North America but found to his cost that the particular colours he had chosen , although popular in the USA, were not to the UK buyers taste and did not sell.

Who will you sell your products to? - we have had more than one clients that has imported a container of “cheap” goods and waited until it arrived in the UK before even attempting to find buyers. Needless to say the stock remained in storage unsold for many months.

We hope the above will give you some food for thought when planning your import business. Please look out for our next helpful tip which will focus on terms of sale and contracts.

If you would like any assistance with your import shipping requirements, please feel free to contact Wavecrest Ltd at any time.

Tel: 01474 331146, E-mail: glen@wavecrest.co.uk

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