Friday 10 March 2017

DAILY SHIPPING NEWS - FRIDAY MARCH 03, 2017

Custom Exchange Rates with effect from Friday March 03, 2017 :

Sl.No.
Foreign Currency
Rate  of   exchange  of   one    unit   of foreign    currency     equivalent    to Indian rupees
(1)
(2)
(3)


(a)
(b)


(For Imported
Goods)
(For Export
Goods)
1.
Australian Dollar

52.10

50.30
2.
Bahrain Dinar

183.50

171.25
3.
Canadian Dollar

50.90

49.25
4.
Danish Kroner

9.65

9.30
5.
EURO

71.55

69.10
6.
Hong Kong  Dollar

8.70

8.50
7.
Kuwait Dinar

226.05

211.65
8.
New Zealand Dollar

48.55

46.85
9.
Norwegian Kroner

8.05

7.80
10.
Pound Sterling

83.40

80.65
11.
Singapore Dollar

48.10

46.65
12.
South African Rand

5.30

4.95
13.
Saudi Arabian Riyal

18.40

17.25
14.
Swedish Kroner

7.50

7.25
15.
Swiss Franc

67.35

65.00
16.
UAE Dirham

18.80

17.60
17.
US Dollar

67.65

66.00
18.
Chinese Yuan

9.85

9.55
19.
Qatari Riyal

18.90

17.85


SCHEDULE-II


Foreign
Currency
Rate of  exchange of  100 units of  foreign currency equivalent to Indian rupees
(1)
(2)
(3)


(a)
(b)


(For Imported
Goods)
(For Export
Goods)
1.
Japanese Yen
59.65
57.65
2.
Kenya Shilling
67.25
62.90

Air Freight News :

IAG Cargo to embrace technology with new customer portal and WMS.

·        
IAG Cargo will look to further embrace technology to create efficiencies and improve its product offering in the year ahead in order to offset the current market conditions.
Speaking shortly after the carrier revealed its 2016 full-year results, IAG Cargo chief executive Drew Crawley and head of commercial David Shepherd revealed that the carrier planned to launch a new website and booking portal over the coming 12 months and also to invest in a new warehouse management system as it looks to create efficiencies and develop its customer offering.
“Our website is being re-launched in the next month or so and we are also developing application programming interfaces (API) so that those companies that want to interact with us directly through our website by linking that into their technology can do so,” said Crawley.
Shepherd added: “With the new website we have tried to look for a level of simplicity that makes it straight forward and easy for a customer to look for our availability, see what price they can book at and then easily make that booking without engaging in a more manual way.
“For the smaller customer that hasn’t invested in the IT infrastructure, they need to provide e-AWBs, for example, they are going to be able to do that automatically through this website as well.”
Another area of investment on the technology front is in a new warehouse management system, which comes ahead of the opening of an expanded premium product warehouse in 2018 that will double the size of its existing facility.
Asia Pacific airlines off to a good start.

·        
Figures from the Association of Asia Pacific Airlines (AAPA) show that Asia Pacific-based airlines made a good start to the year, with continued growth in air cargo demand.
International air cargo demand during the month measured in freight tonne kilometres (FTK) grew by 4.7%.
Offered freight capacity expanded by 3.8%, resulting in a 0.5 percentage point rise in the average international freight load factor to 59.4% for the month.
Commenting on the results, Andrew Herdman, AAPA director general said: "The year started on an encouraging note for Asian carriers, with both international air passenger and cargo markets growing strongly, boosted by the timing of the Lunar New Year holidays."
"The overall picture for the year ahead looks broadly positive, against a backdrop of renewed optimism on global growth prospects and improving consumer and business confidence across sectors.
Air cargo under no immediate threat from start-ups but should still be watchful.

·        
The air cargo industry should not ignore the threat of start-ups but in the short term there is no major threat of disruption.
During a conference session at the Air Cargo Africa event, panellists outlined their thoughts on whether the air cargo industry could be at threat from start-ups, in the same way that Uber had shaken up the taxi industry.
The panel identified four different types of start-ups that are relevant to the air cargo industry: price comparison websites, virtual forwarders, load optimisation/cargo consolidation solutions and document flow improvement services.
While it was felt that these start-up companies should be watched, the panel also felt that at the moment they lacked the industry oversight to truly shake up air cargo and instead were looking to solve niche problems.
Fraport senior vice president, cargo, Dirk Schusdziara

Fraport Senior Vice President, Cargo, Dirk Schusdziara, said :  “We think they have a lot of good ideas but they lack execution and they lack the global reach at the moment.  So they might have a lot of money, but quite a lot of the time they are focused on a niche area and not the A-Z picture and they don’t have the ability to execute”.

“Time will tell if they are able to learn to do this or whether they cannot. Currently I would say they cannot because at the moment it is all virtual, but we are still physically moving goods.  Whenever you are doing something with a virtual freight forwarder, it might work for the first ten times but if cargo gets stuck in Customs or wherever, the question is to whom are you talking and who is then moving the goods and fixing the issue?

“That is where the hurdle is for these guys and at the moment I don’t see one of these start-ups coming up that they have the answer for that.”

“So is there a way these platforms can connect the entire supply chain and not just silos at an airport or a port? These are things that could possibly transform the market much more than the start-ups.”

Sea  Cargo  News :

Port Trusts Win Large Rate Hikes from TAMP

India Tradeways
Ten of the 11 ports owned by the union government and run as trusts have recently won large rate hikes from the rate regulator, some in excess of 100%, two years after the shipping ministry changed the way rate revision applications of these ports are to be screened by the port regulator TAMP. If the rate hikes are implemented in full by the port trusts, it will have a huge impact on 57% of India’s EXIM trade moved by the sea rote every year and will negate the governments’ efforts to reduce logistic costs to make Indian products/goods competitive in the global stage. The regulator’s approval for the rates hikes is an indication of things to come when these “port trusts” are converted into “port authorities” under a new law that was introduced in Parliament in December 2016. A rate regulator does not figure in the new law.


India takes lead to run freight train from Dhaka to Istanbul

Indian Express
Taking a leaf from China’s run to Europe, India is going to showcase its might in freight movement by running a trans-continental container train full of goods from Dhaka to Istanbul, covering a 6,000-km journey across five countries — Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Iran and Turkey. Codenamed the ITI-DKD-Y corridor, the container train’s route is scheduled as Dhaka-Kolkata-Delhi-Islamabad-Tehran-Istanbul. Eventually, Yangon will also be connected to Dhaka. The missing Tamu-Kalay link in Myanmar is still to be built. Indian Railways has called South Asian railway heads involved in the project to work out the nitty-gritty at a high-level meeting on March 15-16. Pakistan railway chief Javed Anwar is also being invited. There is one issue with Pakistan that needs to be fixed.

Nepal-bound containers stranded at Kolkata port

Kathmandu Post
Nearly 1,000 Nepal-bound cargo containers have been stranded at India’s Kolkata port after one of the railway tracks at the port that links Birgunj’s Sirsiya Dry Port was damaged some two weeks ago. Also, 300 containers laden with export goods have been stuck at Sirsiya Dry Port, according to Pradip Kedia, president of Birgunj Chamber of Commerce and Industry. Container Corporation of India Limited (CONCOR), an Indian government undertaking that handles Nepal’s railway freight, has requested to shift the containers from Sirsiya Dry Port, which is likely to result in additional costs for Nepali traders. Traders have to pay at least IRs4,400 per container in service charge to shift the containers. Kedia also complained about poor service at the Kolkata port. “It takes at least 16 hours to load 90 containers on a railway rack,” he said.


Railways starts RO-RO service to carry trucks, unclog Delhi roads

Financial Express
Railways today launched Roll-on Roll-off (RO-RO) service from Gurugram to carry loaded trucks on wagons to decongest roads in the national capital region. About 30 loaded trucks were transported on the flat wagons from Garhi Harsuru station in Gurugram for Muradnagar in Uttar Pradesh. “The RO-RO is a boon for Delhi as it would have a direct impact on its air ambient quality and the capital would breathe clean air,” Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu said after launching the service here. RO-RO service aims to reduce carbon emission and congestion on the roads of the national capital region (NCR) as about 66,000 diesel-guzzling trucks pass through Delhi and its adjoining areas in a day. According to railways, there are about 20,000 trucks which are not meant for the NCR, but enter the region to travel further.

India Inc positive on expanding trade, investment biz opportunities with Indian Ocean Rim Association: Ficci survey

Zee Biz
Indian industry is positive on expanding its trade and investment business opportunities with Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA), says a latest survey by industry body Ficci. Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Ficci) conducted a survey titled' 'Industry Perception Survey: Doing Business With Indian Ocean Neighbours' to take a stock of the current sentiment within the Indian industry on the economic potential of India’s engagement with the Indian Ocean region. The survey received responses from respondents across India through regional stakeholder consultations from three metropolitan coastal cities- Kolkata, Mumbai and Chennai. The companies from sectors like fisheries and aquaculture, renewable ocean energy, seaports and shipping, offshore hydrocarbons and seabed minerals, manufacturing, construction, gas and water supply, among others participated in the survey.

India considers reinstating 25% wheat import tax

Hellenic Shipping News
India could impose a 25 per cent import tax on wheat by the middle of March, two government sources said on Wednesday, reinstating the tariff after a gap of nearly three months in response to recent large purchases from overseas. India, the world’s second-biggest wheat producer, lowered the import tax on the grain to 10 per cent from 25 per cent in September 2016 and scrapped the duty on December 8 last year. The decision encouraged imports from private traders who have sealed deals to buy more than five million tonnes of wheat since mid-2016 to meet a supply shortfall left by two years of drought. Higher imports and expectations of a bumper crop has now prompted the government to consider reinstating the 25 per cent tax, two sources directly involved in the decision-making process said.

India’s export recovery not yet broad based: Report

Economic Times
Even as global economy looks to be on a rather bumpy ride, Indian exports, which are mainly dependent on the US, China and Europe have still not recovered, according to a research report by Nomura. “India’s merchandise export growth turned decisively positive last September after nearly two years of contraction. Yet, there is a wide variance for these exports by destination,” the report said. India’s exports to the US, Eurozone and Japan however jumped by 1.2% according to the report. “Exports to G3 (US, Eurozone and Japan) rose by 1.2% y-o-y in January after rising by 1.9% in 2016. In contrast, exports to all other regions combined are still contracting, falling by 8.1% y-o-y in January after a 3.6% decline in 2016,” Nomura report said.

Battles and Building Blocks in Liner Market

Maritime Professional
Clarksons Research has released 2016 liner market review. After another year of extremely difficult market conditions, many would forgive liner sector players for an air of resignation. However, despite a challenging freight market, charter rates remaining firmly in the doldrums and a major corporate casualty, looking back 2016 may well be seen as the year in which the container shipping sector really started to tackle its problems head on. The container shipping sector has spent much of the post-financial crisis era under severe pressure and, as many expected, 2016 proved no real exception. Box freight rates in general remained weak, and the SCFI Composite Index averaged 18% lower in 2016 than in 2015. However, by late in the year it did appear that spot freight rates might be bottoming out on some trade lanes.


JNPT participates in DPD workshop conducted by BRIEF in Delhi

Maritime Gateway
JNPT participated in a workshop on “Direct Port Delivery at Indian Ports – Challenges & Opportunities”, organized by Bureau of Research on Industry & Economic Fundamentals(BRIEF) in New Delhi on 27th Feb. The workshop was attended by Joint Secretary-Shipping, Join Secretary-Customs, Chief Commissioner-Jawahar Customs, Deputy Chairman-JNPT and various other stakeholders of DPD like CFS Association of India and Shipping lines. JNPT participated in the technical session in the workshop, where Shri Neeraj Bansal, Dy.Chairman, JNPT gave presentation on “Initiatives and roadmap towards Direct Port Delivery at JNPT”. Shri Bansal highlighted that DPD is a major initiative of Govt. of India under “Make in India” & “Ease of Doing Business” and very important initiative for reduction of dwell time and transaction cost.

No comments:

Post a Comment