Shortage of Shipping Containers - Bottleneck for Exports

News was prepared under the information support of Online Daily Newspaper on Hellenic and international Shipping "Hellenic Shipping News".

2 Sep 2010

Finnish export industries are suffering from a shortage of shipping containers. Demand for containers for export goods exceeds supply coming from imports. Factors limiting the availability of containers in Finland include the balance of transit traffic, and the Finnish-Russian road haulage agreement.
A major reason for the shortage in containers is that the Russian economy has not recovered at the same pace as that of Finland, which means that the containers moving from Finland to Russia outnumber those going in the other direction.
Kimmo Naski, director of the Port of Kotka, sees another reason for the shortage.
“A year and a half ago Finland implemented an excess weight fee on for road haulage of goods, which caused a significant amount of container traffic to move to other routes. This is an impediment to Finnish exports at this moment,” Naski said in an interview on Finnish Morning TV on Wednesday.
According to Jari Gröhn of the Logistics and Russia unit of the Ministry of Transport and Communications, the matter is linked with the road haulage agreement between Finland and Russia. Under the treaty, loads of more than 38 tonnes in transit traffic require special permission, and the payment of a fee.
In Russia, the bureaucracy linked with such licences is a burden for haulage companies operating in the country. In Finland, the red tape is much less formidable. Finland prefers not to cancel the requirement, because the rule is in force in Russia in any case, Gröhn says.
The extra fee on overweight transport has led to a situation in which goods traffic is routed through other countries, leading to fewer containers coming to Finland.
Gröhn says that the ministry is unable to do anything about the situation. Empty containers are also brought into Finland, but this adds to the total costs of transport.

Source: YLE.fi