|
Goods transportation on the territory of Russia and CIS countries: what should you expect from the post-Soviet area? Many industrial enterprises that produce goods which are imported in our country, as well as the plenty of customers interested in wholesale purchasing make freight traffic to\from Russia very asked for. Goods delivery service is very popular as well; the delivery is performed on the territory of CIS countries, for instance: freight traffic from Bielorussia and Ukraine to Russia, from Moldova to CIS coutries, from Russia to Kazakhstan, etc.
By all appearances, there should be no difficulties for working in this direction, as there is no “language barrier” in the communication with the partners, customs bodies, and law and order representatives. On the other side, in practice, the organization of such freight transportation requires the knowledge of many details: from the customs laws of each country up to the minutest details of the itinerary or to the peculiarity of the mentality. Let’s reveal some of these nuances.
Delivery terms and cost: main determining factors
The fundamental difficulty of Russian transportation is the distance and the state of the roads. There are many regions difficult to get to in Russia and where the national carriers refuse to drive, motivating by their unwillingness, lack of knowledge about the itinerary and possible dangers en route. In some cases, such arguments are grounded; in other cases, they are brought only for increasing the delivery cost unreasonably.
As a rule, the freight cost in the post-Soviet regions is calculated on the basis of the cost of one travelled kilometre or according to the actual fixed cost for the delivery. This indicator is more or less similar for all the carriers and, when choosing the transportation company, you should pay attention to its work experience in the selected region. When calculating the distance, you should take in account not only the kilometres between the initial point and the destination, but also car’s trip from the point of customs registration of the documents up to the place of unloading. Often, this represents hundreds of kilometres. It is not always reasonable to order the transportation orienting oneself only to the rate of pay for the transportation. If speaking about the cost of transportation on the territory of Russia and CIS countries, firstly, it results from this that it should be compared to the delivery term.
There are enough factors that influence the delivery term in Russia. In the first place, this is the peculiarity of work organization of many companies and customs structures.
For example, one cannot plan to perform customs clearance during one day (the optimal term is of fourty-eight hours); in practice, this process can take up to five days.
The more experienced is the transportation company, the carrier, the quicker the customs issue is resolved. The next point is loading-unloading. Here, the duration depends on driver’s team spirit and on the experience of the coordinating manager of the transportation firm. The majority of Russian parners are large-scale enterprises, and many are managed by the Soviet principles of organizing goods’ receipt. Yes, the unloading will be clearly performed, but not quickly. The greater is the company, the more they can keep the vehicle for loading or unloading. It is an art to clear the vehicle in 2 days in Russia.
Thereby, the final freight cost for transportation will include the cost for the distance, taking into consideration the delivery term and the duration of unloading. There is a chance to reduce the transportation term if the customer and the carrier will act in harmony, if they exchange information in good time and if they maintain the relation with the Russian party.
I would like to save money paying rates. Is groupage possible?
Yes, it is. They can organize groupage transportation or assorted lading transportation to/from Russia. The only problem is that it’s more difficult to realize this here in comparison to the European direction. The reason? The answer is the peculiarity of Russia’s cutoms laws (they don’t know how to register groupage cargo correcly in all the regions). The company that delivers assorted lading on the territory of Russia and CIS countries doesn’t collect more than 2-3 cargo in the same vehicle for not delaying the delivery term too much. For example, the delivery of three freights can take up to a fortnight. For many customers, this lost time is more perceivable than the little interest in saving by rate payment.
The conclusion: you can order groupage and assorted lading transportation on the territory of CIS countries only from the companies that are specialized in providing such services: they know the details of documents registration exactly, and they dispose of consolidated storehouses that allow reducing the delivery term.
Transit through CIS countries: notice for the customer
Ordering the transportation, coordinate the itinerary with the carrier and specify the transit countries. Is your partner located in Russia or Europe and the delivery of the goods shall pass through some CIS countries? You should precise the details of transporting your goods through these countries: find out if the financial guarantee for the goods is necessary to draw up, if the hygienic certificates are needed and whether you should dispose of permits for transit making, etc. Remember- the transportation company is liable for the transportation and the documents for it, and you, the customer, are liable to present all the documents related to the goods.
Your task is to control if the hygiene and veterinary permits for the cargo are ready, if necessary, and to grant to the carrier full information about the type and the cost of the cargo: some cargo types can pass though the Ukraine and Bielorussia only under police escort, some of them require a financial guarantee. The execution of the latter variant can “cost a bomb”
and it will be reflected in customer’s expenses, as it relates to the cargo direcly.
Of course, an experienced transport worker – carrier- forwarder will check up himself if all the documents exist before the departure. But if he doesn’t do this, you can “accuse” him only if you weren’t noticed before about the country of transit where the problem appeared. Our transportation- shipping company can offer consultation for all the details of the shipments.
|
Transport of goods to CIS countries
