Custom Union corridor

On November 3th, mr. Aleksey Burduli, deputy general director Beltamozhservice and mr. Marcel Smink, CEO SIC Group, have both signed agreements with Spider Logistics, represented by mr. Anton van Dongen, managing director, to start the development of a door-to-door service for European based customers into Belarus, Kazakhstan and the Russian Federation. This initiative has been the result of the new customs union between the 3 countries involved and  with the new cooperation between Beltamozhservice, SIC Group and Spider Logistics a service will be developed that will ensure a short lead-time from Brest (Belarus) towards any destination in the Russian Federation.

Specially the custom clearance process will be simplified due to the new customs union, and with the leading position of Belthamozhservice in custom activities in Belarus, Spider Logistics will be able to offer our customers a significant improved process of import towards the 3 countries.After many years of discussion and development, a final agreement has been initiated in the summer of 2010 between the three states and they are to go on with economic integration and are set to remove all customs borders between Russia-Kazakhstan and Russia-Belarus from 2011. The agreement, for now, eases trade among the three large former Soviet economies without fully abolishing all duties and tariffs

What does the Custom Union mean for import activities towards Russia?

Each Western European based company that imports goods towards the Russian Federation has his own experiences with unpredictable customs procedures and lead-times of the products to the final destinations. Relationship is the key word to ensure that your shipments will pass the customs without too many delays or extra costs involved.

With the Customs Union, the internal borders between the three countries will be (in the end) dismissed, which means,  custom clearance activities for the Russian Federation can be performed at the Polish / Belarus border for road and rail shipments towards the main cities in the Russian Federation.

A central role for the customs activities will be played by the city of Brest due to its geographical and historical situation with the M1 and the rail facilities as a good infrastructure for the transfer of the goods into the Russian Federation.

Beltamozhservice

Beltamozhservice is an old Belarus company that provides custom clearance activities and is at the moment the main  customs broker in this area. The company owns 52 customs clearance offices at each border entry point in Belarus and they have played a unique role in the development of the Customs Union, together with the Belarus and Russian Railway.

With the “nr. 1“ position in custom clearances in Belarus, they will be an important factor in the success of the Customs Union. Without the cooperation of Beltamozhservice the customs process will not be very different from the last couple of years. Increased lead-times and possible delays at custom clearance process at the Polish/Belarus border can still be expected specially due to the limited logistics knowledge and experiences of the company.

Spider Logistics and Beltamozhservice

In the last months, both companies have held several meeting to discuss how the new Customs Union can be developed into a corridor between Europe and Russian Federation that will ensure fixed and short lead-times. Next the partners are developing a a custom clearance process that will allow an electronic customs clearance procedure.An exclusive long term agreement has been signed to ensure that the 3 companies align the process to develop a complete service package for the customers of Spider Logistics.

Due to the “Neutral” position of Spider Logistics, we are able to develop a synergy between customer volumes into Russia and to combine the existing capabilities without the issues of assets to be involved.

3 Step Process

Step 1

The companies involved (Belthamoszhservice / SIC Group and Spider Logistics) developed a clear process that will ensure a fixed lead-time, to be determined by project and by customer from the Brest border location into the Moscow terminal, custom cleared
As a carrier neutral Transport Management company, Spider Logistics will manage the first leg (Leg 1) from customer locations anywhere in Europe towards the Brest location. Shipments will be managed in line with the customer requirements and Spider Logistics will be focused on developing solutions for each customer that will take the effects towards the CO2 emissions into account, where possible.
From the loading point at the customer location, Spider Logistics will collect all documentation for the custom clearance procedure and electronically transfer all information to our Spider Logistics TC location in Belarus.

Step 2

At arrival of the containers at the Brest location, the following action has been completed already:
•    Transit Clearance by arrival (electronic process)
•    Rail equipment for Brest-Moscow has been ordered and ready for swob
•    Containers will be transferred to Russian train
Due to the Control Tower structure of Spider Logistics, all steps can and will be prepared to ensure that no delays will take place at the Brest location. With the partnership of Beltamozhservice and the SIC Group, Spider Logistics can manage this process from our location in Belarus.

Leg 3

At arrival in in the Moscow terminal, Spider Logistics will ensure that each of the containers can be transferred directly after arrival towards the final customer location. Which means that in future there are no custom clearance activities to be executed at the Moscow terminal anymore

Security

Security was always a point of concern for the services into the Russian Federation. With the new corridor and the services of Spider Logistics, the security element is reduced to a minor concern due to the positioning of the containers on the rail equipment.
In the case of 40FT containers, both will be placed on one train platform with the doors towards each other.
Next to this high level of security, guards from the railway will accompany each train movement from Brest towards Moscow

Benefits  from the services of Spider Logistics

•    A Door to Door service offering from any location in Europe towards Moscow, with in a later phase (end 2011)  all other main cities Unpredictable lead-times for the shipments are now changed into fixed times that will ensure that customer inventories can be brought to reliable levels again
•    Custom clearance process will be managed from begin till the end by Spider Logistics
•    Due to the efficient process with short lead-times, serious cost will be reduced for our customers supply chain.