Export delays.
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• New Customs proposals for 1988 could create more paperwork for international operators, and even longer delays for drivers at docks, according to claims made last week.
From January 11988, Customs and Excise is proposing that the exporter of every consignment is identified and the value of goods made clear.
This demand for extra consignment information, however, will force hauliers to set-up their own systems to gather the details said the Freight Transport Association's air and surface transport co-ordinator Caroline Trewitt.
"Just imagine the increased form-filling and research work that will confront any operator with a lorry load for export containing 80 individual consignments," she said.
She predicts that hauliers will face similar delays for exporting as those dealing with imported goods. "It's just a mad piece of bureaucracy dreamed up to catch the very small percentage of people involved in fraud and drugs smuggling".
Although the Customs has only recently made the proposals, it is keen to implement the system and says that exporters and transport operators just need education to make these new proposals workable.
The FTA has already argued its case with Customs, and has now gone on to lobby the Department of Transport and the Department of Trade and Industry. The Road Haulage Association is also opposed to the proposals. International executive Bob Duffy claims that while problems will be created primarily for the exporter, hauliers are frequently lumbered with all the organisational problems, and would suffer all the port delays.
Freight vehicle traffic through Dover increased by 5% in June with 70,000 using the port. Traffic during the first six months of 1986 was up by almost 10%.