FBJ 4 FREIGHT BUSINESS JOURNAL


CONTACTS SALES


JOHN SAUNDERS - PUBLISHER Tel: +44 (0)151 427 6800 Fax: +44 (0)151 427 1796 Mobile: +44 (0)7932 102026 john.saunders@f j-online.com


RAY GIRVAN Tel: +44 (0)1691 718 045


EDITORIAL


CHRIS LEWIS - EDITOR +44 (0)7778 106433


chris.lewis@f j-online.com MIKE BRYANT PHIL HASTINGS


CIRCULATION


Tel: +44 (0)151 427 6800 circulation@f j-online.com


By Chris Lewis


In another era, Lord Palmerston, commenting on the most vexed and fraught political problem of the day, the Schleswig-Holstein Question said: “Only three people have ever really understood the Schleswig-Holstein business—the Prince Consort, who is dead—a German professor, who has gone mad—and I, who have forgotten all about it.” We’re in danger of getting into much the situation with Brexit. Hand on heart, does anyone really understand what our legislators are up to any more? We’ve had Parliament rejecting plans by the Prime Minister; Parliament voting on preferred options, which the Government would not necessarily be obliged to adopt, but then failing to vote in favour of any of them anyway; and, at the time of writing, talks between the Prime Minister and the leader of the opposition. And now the EU’s sanctioned of a stay of execution, to 31 October – which might leave enough time for Theresa May to resign and a new Prime Minister to be installed, in which case all bets are off once again. The only thing those of us standing on the sidelines can say is that, in early April, our politicians seem to be no closer to resolving the matter and coming up with a workable plan. To paraphrase the 19th Century statesman, the only three people who now understand the Brexit process are a couple of media political commentators while the other has nothing better to do than watch the Parliament TV channel all day.


ADVERTISEMENT PRODUCTION


LORRAINE CHRISTIAN Tel: +44 (0)151 427 6800 lorraine.christian@f j-online.com


ANDREA CAZZOLATO Tel: +44 (0)151 427 6800 andrea@f j-online.com


As the Brexit process grinds slowly and painfully on, it has been left to the freight industry to patch up some of the damage and put out the inevitable brushfires that the process has left in its wake. BIFA has just welcomed HMRC’s recent announcement that freight forwarders will, after all, be allowed to operate the new Transitional Simplified Procedures alongside their customers – a belated realisation by the Government of how international trade actually works. BIFA has hailed the move as ”a very significant easement of policy” that BIFA had to fight tooth and nail for. Under the circumstances, this can be counted as something of a victory.


Software firm BluJay made an interesting announcement a few weeks ago, saying that it had a technological fix for the much-vexed problem of the Irish border after Brexit. It has just completed a project to use electronic tags to monitor cargo on its journey and to alert the authorities when it passes from the jurisdiction of one country to another. There is no doubting that there is some incredible technology available today that, in theory at any rate, could surmount the formidable data-collection issues that Brexit poses. The problem though, is getting the legislative sign-offs to allow its use and dragging Revenue departments into the 21st Century. There is also the small issue of scaling up a proof of concept into something that can be depended on, day in, day out, in whatever time is left available.


HEAD OFFICE


FREIGHT BUSINESS JOURNAL


Saunders Associates Ltd Station House Mersey Road Liverpool UK L17 6AG


Tel: +44 (0)151 427 6800 Fax: +44 (0)151 427 1796 Email: info@f j-online.com Web: www.f j-online.com


Meanwhile it is pretty much business as usual in European politics. The European Parliament recently revealed its position on the so-called Mobility Package that will govern the future of road haulage operations in the EU. While the aim of the proposals to cut red tape and simplify the rules surrounding cabotage or driver rest periods is laudable, the Freight Transport Association complains that they are still too vague and leave much open to interpretation. We in the UK could take the view that none of this need concern us as we should, eventually, be out of it. But if we are to continue to having dealings with the rest of Europe, the rules will, effectively, apply to our truckers in Europe – a neat encapsulation of the problems of Brexit, if ever there was one.


Lufthansa’s announcement that it had managed to turn three quarters of its air waybills into electronic documents could be a significant milestone. It’s been a long time coming, and the German airline is of course only one carrier among


Issue 3 2019 - Freight Business Journal From the Editor


///NEWS


FBJ is the only UK and one of the few pan-European Multimodal newspapers. The comments we have received prove there is still room for a hard copy publication within the freighting industry. You don’t have to look at a screen all day!


FBJ boasts the most informative and authoritative source of information with unrivalled in-depth knowledge of the rapidly changing freight business environment.


As the defi nitive publication within the sea, air, road and rail freight sectors, each issue includes regular news and analysis, in-depth coverage discovering the business decisions behind the news stories, shipper and exporter reports, opinion, geographical features, political and environmental issues.


If you have any stories or letters which should be of interest or any feedback on FBJ, please contact our editor Chris Lewis - +44 (0)208 6450666 chris.lewis@f j-online.com


next issue >> circulation >>


Our next issue will include features on: Malta, Aerospace,


Ro-Ro, Freight Soſt ware Guide & Multimodal 2019 Show Preview. For further details contact: John Saunders - +44 (0) 151 427 6800 john.saunders@f j-online.com


To guarantee your personal copy of FBJ please register by emailing


your details to circulation@f j-online.com or fax back the address cover sheet included with this issue.


many, most of whom are lagging considerably behind Lufthansa in this area. Still, it’s a pretty major achievement considering that the proportion of eAWBs was virtually nothing just seven years ago.


Driving overland from Europe to China used to be the sort of thing that adventurers and explorers used to do but now it could be part of the everyday routine of the long-distance trucker. Ceva Logistics is operating what it says is the first-ever regular road freight service between the two great trading regions, though no doubt many others will follow. Several forwarders have also offered through rail services between China and Europe for quite a few years now. Tellingly, what it took to get the first China/Europe regular truck service off the ground was not some feat of road- or bridge-building but the removal of customs bureaucracy through the universal adoption of the TIR system in all the countries traversed.


Are there too many global forwarders these days? Certainly, with Denmark’s DSV poised to take over global operator Panalpina in mid-April and the completion of CMA CGM’s purchase of Ceva, the market seems to think so. While the Swiss-based company’s name will be retained as part of the new joint entity, there will inevitably be some rationalisation of offices and staff. What is certain is that the new DSV Panalpina will be a force to be reckoned with including a staff of more than 60,000 employees and operations spanning 90 countries. It could though be the last merger on this scale for some time, if only because there are no other truly international forwarders that remain to be bought up.


It’s a brave person who tries to predict what the big disruptions in the supply chain will be in 2019, but the folks at DHL have certainly had a go in their Resilience360 annual risk report published last month. They suggest that climate and other natural disasters, trade disputes, civil unrest and raw material shortages could be the big issues of the year. We wouldn’t dispute any of that except perhaps to add one other – something totally unexpected and unthought of.


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28