June 2009
 |
 |
 |
|
WelcomeWelcome to CCL’s June 2009 newsletter. The month, we extend a Big CCL Welcome to our newest staff member. Jawad Zaki joined our busy Operations Team. He’ll be liaising with customers so give him a warm welcome if you should speak to him when you call. We’ve been busy at trade events in the last few weeks. The 6th Annual Sino-International Freight Forwarders Conference, took place in Hong Kong. The organisers set us up with a profile in their directory and a schedule for one-to-one meetings. This quickly filled up with people wanting to discuss our services and find out how we could help them improve productivity and manage costs. We met lots of new faces and connected with established customers and contacts too. Next was the Triangle Mail and Express Delivery Show (MEDS) in London, just a day after we returned from Hong Kong. This too proved to be a great networking opportunity. Watch this space for details of more events we’ll be attending and exhibiting at later in the year.
We’re launching a new feature slot this month. Each issue we’ll be spotlighting a different freight forwarder with a short promotional piece and a link to their web site. This month we’re featuring LinC Freight Management Ltd (formerly Wright Kerr Tyson). If you want your freight forwarding/courier/supply chain or logistics business featured in a future issue, just drop us a line, with a short paragraph about your services, a logo and your web site address. It’s a great opportunity – our newsletter goes out to over 1,000 people. Enjoy the rest of this issue and don’t forget, for any customs and importation queries, make our friendly and approachable Customer Services team on +44 (0)20 8231 0900 your first port of call. In this issueEORI Update EORI UpdateOn 1 July 2009 the European Union's new identification system for businesses and individuals who import from or export to countries outside the EU, goes live. The new system is called Economic Operator Registration and Identification (EORI). Under the new system each business and individual will be allocated a unique number which will be recognised on customs declarations in any one of the 27 Member States and will identify the business/individual to HMRC. We are currently in the 3 month dual running period where both the EORI and TURN systems operate simultaneously. But from 1 July 2009, all TURN numbers will become obsolete and only EORI numbers will be used and recognised. If you have not been notified by HMRC of your EORI number, you will need to apply for one. Details on how to apply including the application form as well as further information about the scheme can be found on the HMRC website EORI Scheme home page. It is recommended you apply for your number a week before you import or export to ensure it is available when we make the customs declaration on your behalf. This will help ensure that your consignment is not delayed by HMRC and will reach its final destination more quickly. You have been warned! HMRC crack down on alcohol and tobacco smugglingHMRC are getting tougher on alcohol and tobacco smuggling. With new teams around the country and more to come, they are targeting smugglers and aim to disrupt and destroy their supply and distribution chains. To give you an idea of the scale of the problem, illegitimate tobacco smuggling loses the Government up to £3 billion in tax revenue every year – that’s money stolen from us, and not available for important public services. Many illegal cigarettes are manufactured under very dubious circumstances and have been known to contain sawdust, tobacco beetles or rat faeces. Illegitimate alcohol is little better and can contain potentially deadly toxic substances. Whilst the Government’s approach has resulted in the prosecution of more than 2,000 people and a reduction in the criminal market from 21% to 13% in the last decade or so, they are not relaxing. They warn that those caught trading in illicit goods face an ever increasing range of penalties and sanctions and up to 7 years imprisonment. Enough said, we think. Our Featured Freight Forwarder: LinC Freight Management Ltd
Why connect up with LinC? Because LinC delivers the best of what you expect in supply chain management – professionalism, industry expertise and experience - coupled with a no-nonsense straight-forward approach to getting goods moving around the globe.
For end-to-end supply chain management – connect up with LinC. Aircrafts, anywhere, for every missionWe met Jamie Peters and Michael Amson of Air Partner Freight (www.airpartner.com) in Hong Kong too. UK-based Air Partner Freight, a division of international aviation services provider Air Partner plc, has global offices. They provide independent advice on the aircraft charter solutions to best meet their clients’ needs. Air Partner Freight tailors services to meet the most demanding schedules at the best possible rates. Urgent and outsize needs worldwide are catered for, 24/7, using aircraft of every size, from Learjets to the Antonov 225. Their mission is, every time, on time, on budget. Air Partner Freight has fast access to the latest data on aircraft capabilities and airfield infrastructure, even in the most remote areas. Combining this up-to-the-minute information with years of in-house expertise, they plan the task to save their clients money as well as time. Q&A - Everything you wanted to know about importing, but were afraid to ask!Here’s the spot where we answer in brief your more specific customs and importation questions. Q: I am shipping a bike to London from the USA and wondering about clearing it. I will only be in the UK with it for a maximum of 1 day, then travelling into mainland Europe. The bike is for touring only and will be returned to the USA at a later date from another country. A: If the bike is your own personal property, you don’t need to declare it or pay any tax – providing it has been owned by you for more than 6 months. We would recommend that you don’t ship it separately from your own travel, but instead take it with you to the airport check-in desk and get the airline to ship it as oversized luggage, where you will pay only an excess baggage fee. Coffee Break Story: Trade Show BluesHere’s another of our ‘coffee break’ stories for your time-out time. Enjoy! You start the day with a burst of energy and a flash of enthusiasm - must be that second double espresso working its magic. But it’s downhill all the way after that, and you know what you’re in for, even before it starts. Down the stairs to the basement – no daylight – maybe you’re supposed to lose track of time. Like being in Las Vegas, except there’s no money on the table and no avenue of clicking, flashing slot-machines; just the shell-scheme booth, with your name on the top panel, a dusty, straggly plant in a tub, a bar table (no drinks) and a couple of rock-hard stools. Oh yeah, and a pile of brochures, neatly fanned out across the table, to stop you slouching. Deep gloom.... Yep, it’s trade-show duty, come around again, far too soon. Boy, did I draw the short-straw this time. Both days, on my own, hour after hour of smiley-handy-shaky please-like-me eagerness, trying to look enthusiastic as one person after another wanders by, not wanting to meet my gaze, not interested in stopping. Well I don’t want to talk to you either, mate, but at least it would use up a few minutes of this endless day. Yesterday was a killer, and today will be worse, for sure. First look at the watch – 10 past 9. Only another 7 hours and 50 minutes to go. He’s there again, just over the aisle. Mr Happy. It’s not even 9.30 and he’s already chatting animatedly with a couple of guys in suits. He even looks like he’s enjoying himself – lots of back-slapping and laughter. Then somebody else shows up and - I can’t believe it – they brought him a coffee! I can’t step off my booth for a moment in case the boss swings by, so I spend the day parched and starving, and Mr Happy has visitors, no less, bringing him coffee! How did that happen? I know my smile is getting fixed and I’m probably looking a bit like a mad-axe-murderer, but that’s no reason not to stop and say hello, is it? Friends, I need your business cards, if only to prove that I’ve been here all day! Even if you’re not interested. Oh go on, please.... Mr Happy is collecting bucket-loads of cards. He’s not even offering an incentive – no prize-draw, no little mints in a tin box, nothing. Yet every passer-by stops and says hello, and drops their card into his box. More often than not, he’s juggling two or three people at once, and those that don’t know each other are being introduced around. They’re making connections, picking up those rather smart little mini-brochures (wish we’d thought of that, then I’d have some space to lean my elbows on the table) and generally setting up to do business – you just know it. Me, jealous? Whatever gave you that idea?! Time drags, hour after hour, and all I can see is Mr Happy, busy as you like, really working the show, whilst I’m shifting from one sore, aching foot to the other and willing the day to end. He’s had the occasional quiet patch, I admit, but just a few odd minutes, here and there. He doesn’t waste them though, jumping on the phone to catch his messages or tapping quick replies into his Blackberry. We’re creeping towards 4 o’clock now and things are getting quieter for everybody, even Mr Happy. I think he’s even managed to answer all his messages and emails, as he’s perched on his bar-stool, looking into the middle-distance for the first time today. Then he catches my eye, gets up and wanders over, all beaming smiles and a warm handshake. I’m crazed with boredom, jealous of his oh-so-positive approach, but I can’t help but admire – he’s found yet another way to make the time move on by. We chat, and for the first time today, I’m actually engaged and interested, not just pretending. I could see from his booth that he’s in customs clearance. Well, Customs Clearance Ltd, is a does-what-it-says-on-the-tin kinda name, isn’t it? I’d even read his pop-ups once or twice, whilst I was passing the time. To be honest, I’d read them so often I could probably recite them back to him with my eyes closed. So I knew what he did. Still, we chatted, and it turned out there was a bit more to the customs clearance game than I’d assumed. I’d started off wondering why on earth a business would want to pay good money to get somebody else to handle their customs clearance – it’s just paper-pushing, isn’t it?? But by the time Mr Happy went back to his booth to pull down his pop-ups, I had a much better idea of why. I’d even picked up a couple of those clever little mini-brochures for my boss – well, I’m pretty sure he’ll want to save money and get those tricky US consignments moving faster into Europe, never mind offloading admin to people who know what to put on the forms, not waiting around for hours at the airport, getting paid faster by the clients... the list of reasons went on. He might even want to thank me.... by letting me off the next trade show duty. And finally........ just because a bit of shameless self-promotion never hurt anybody, this is our latest advertisement, which featured in the Triangle Mail and Express Delivery Show (MEDS) conference catalogue. 
|
|
| Customs Clearance Limited | |
To mention few notable connections from the Sino-International event - in the picture with Rudee is Gerry Yang of ADS Logistics, Shenzen, China (
LinC (25th June 2009
