July 14 2004, 16:08 SeaNews

Ukraine increased charges for storage of transit loads on its territory

By an order of the State Customs Service of Ukraine (GTSU) the customs authorities have introduced a charge for storage of transit loads under the customs control of Ukraine for the period exceeding 15 days in the amount of 0.05 percent of the load customs value, SeaNews agency has reported.

According to experts, taking into account the companies' needs of accumulating voluminous amounts of loads to be shipped on the customs territory of marine departure, the extra costs of the clients of Ukrainian ports might be reaching thousands of dollars, the agency writes.

The GTSU order was issued in the context of intents of Ukrainian container-shipping ports to increase the cost of storage in order to cease the practice of overdue container demurrage on the customs territory. But the ports were saying they were not going to affect transit operations. As regards mass-shipment loads, the process of accumulation of ship cargos from road and rail deliveries in Ukrainian ports usually takes more than 15 days.

According to the management of Ukraine's Association of International Forwarders (AMEU), this measure outsteps the framework of Ukrainian legislation and violates the strategy of Ukraine's development as a transit state, which was affirmed by one of Ukrainian laws. This move will become another discouraging factor, driving foreign partners away from transportations of their loads through the territory of Ukraine, said an AMEU representative, according to SeaNews.