We can do better

Business Petersburg
7 April 2006:

ROUNDTABLE: FREIGHT FORWARDING MARKET IS GROWING IN VOLUME BUT NOT IN PERFORMANCE

«Another big issue is a poorly developed infrastructure, primarily, lack of access roads, resulting in massive backlogs at the First Container Terminal and in front of Petro Lumber Port. This won"t go on forever, the market will surely respond to the situation and if nothing changes, freight traffic, no matter what, will be channeled to other ports", says Victor Lebedintsev, Head of Shipping Dept at OOO SOTRANS.

 "The main cause of backlogs at the St. Petersburg port is machinery shortage at the terminals. Frequently the same machinery is used for loading both ships and trucks. While ships are being unloaded, especially if two or three vessels come to the docks at the same time, the trucks stand idle: ships" standing time costs a lot more. Customs procedures also cause delays. Last year the Baltic Customs Office issued a new instruction prescribing inspection of all the customs transit cargo, i.e. 100% inspection of all the containers. This has resulted in huge line-ups; we stand waiting for every box to be opened and inspected. The terminals fend off our complaints of delay with empty responses"…