Maersk becomes first container shipping company to offer digital Ocean Customs Clearance
Every port in every country puts cargo through many different rules, regulations and laws that complicate a trader’s life. Aiming to provide simple and easy-to-use solutions, Maersk has launched Customs Clearance online shipping management platform in seven European countries – Germany, France, Denmark, The Netherlands, Poland, United Kingdom and Spain – with the goal of expanding this offering across the world by the end of 2019.
International trade is subjected to diverse and wide controls and customs regulations that need to be met to ensure that traded goods are entering and exiting legally. If a delay occurs, the entire plan gets affected. A delay causes increased expenses such as storage costs, fines, and penalties, resulting in additional problems for importers and exporters.
– This new one-stop-shop allows us to timely and efficiently handle export and import declarations for our customers. The solution provides downstream benefits of full governance and compliance, eliminates the need to provide a quote as pricing is displayed online, saving three to five minutes per quote – explains Vincent Clerc, Chief Commercial Officer of A.P. Moller – Maersk.
In other words, it saves our customers time, money and headaches reducing the number of intermediaries they deal with from three or four to just one as well as paperwork which subsequently reduce the time spent on transactional procedures. Time saved they can then devote to grow their businesses.
A good example of this is Germany where Maersk has piloted this Ocean and Customs Clearance shipping management platform for almost two years.
– It is perfect to book our service request only with one online platform without contacting further operational departments. We prefer local language and we appreciate collaboration between the responsible departments within Maersk. We welcome the possibility to have all Customs House Brokerage documents uploaded on the internet platform (quick plus easy handling). Would be good to have one invoice handling in the future, but okay for now. The Customs House Broker service provided by the relevant departments is excellent – states Robert Weber from Speditionsabteilung at Neenah Gessner GmBH.
