Anxious days for exports

By PAM GRAHAM

Exporters made the leap to full compliance with new United States customs rules yesterday, unsure whether their frantic preparations would be enough to get their goods through.

Exporters knew tighter security in the post-September 11 world would affect them, but the detail was shocking when it arrived in November last year.

Documents must now be supplied to US customs 24 hours before loading at origin instead of the four to five days before arrival at destination that was common practice.

The change effectively moves the US border to New Zealand, which is not good news for exporters of chilled goods who sell produce in transit, or for those who share containers.

New Zealand ships about 70,000 containers a year to US destinations and the same number goes through US territory.

Shipping companies said there had been a quick response from exporters and compliance had been good.

But the chairman of Export New Zealand's trade and transport committee, Gilbert Ullrich, is not so optimistic.

"We're all waiting with bated breath," he said. "It is D-day for exporters.

"To think it is plain sailing is extremely optimistic."

The man who told hurriedly organised meetings of exporters in December that the new regime was an opportunity for New Zealand if it complied faster than competitors, is now facing the reality that it was always going to be harder for small exporters such as himself, who share containers.

Ullrich is delaying a container that he was consolidating for shipment on February 5 to Guam. The paperwork for his last container to the US territory was not right.

"They warned me at customs that I had better get it right next time and I take these things seriously."

Bo Samuelsson, the Columbus Line's general manager of commercial operations, said there had been 100 per cent compliance.

"We were foreseeing some problems when the whole thing started but the export community have geared up to meet this challenge."

Maersk Sealand managing director Flemming Gamst said New Zealand shippers had taken a proactive stance.

"They are extremely good at supplying information within the deadlines, so we do not foresee any complications."

Media reports suggest compliance is as low as 10 per cent in some Asian ports.

They have to deal with freight transiting but also have US customs representatives on hand to consult.

Samuelsson said New Zealand was a low-risk country so if cargo was held up, it would be because procedures were not followed, and not because of the security risk.

He expected that if a manifest was submitted which was found to have either errors or unacceptable data, US customs would respond with a request to not load the container.

Brian Lynch, executive director of the Meat Industry Association, said the change had been a huge leap for exporters.

Shipping companies wanted documents four to five days before the 24 hour period.

The US had been monitoring progress and was looking for repeated non-compliance, but there had been no cases where a meat shipper could be accused of that.

An honest effort had been made to comply in the past 30 days and "I think the US authorities will take that into account".

Lynch said the penalties for non-compliance were unknown. Nor was it known how US customs would cope with the mountain of paperwork it was about to confront.