Transshipment refers to transporting goods, cargo or freight, by more than one means of transportation. It is common for a shipment to be handled by many different people on its journey to its destination. Many cargo and freight shipments are sent through a customs area, where they are stored and monitored for customs compliance. By using a customs area at international harbors and airports during transshipment, ocean shipments and air cargo shipments can avoid customs checks and customs duties in the countries between the departing country and the country of destination.
Customs authorities control the customs areas at international sea ports and air cargo airports. These customs areas are fenced for security. Shipments are checked for local law compliance and are stored in the customs area. Sometimes these areas are massive, covering the entire airport or harbor and holding multiple warehouses capable of storing and handling enormous amounts of ocean cargo and air freight. The area is carefully controlled to ensure that import/export laws are followed, taxes are not avoided, and fraudulent customs declarations are not made.
Customs areas have brought a lot of structure and efficiency to the ocean shipping and airfreight businesses. Companies can send goods all over the world without having to clear customs checks and pay customs duties for each country that is involved in the transshipment of their goods. The process is greatly simplified by having shipments enter these customs authority controlled areas store and process shipments coming through each country involved in the transshipment.
Customs areas track shipments that are imported or exported by road, railway, air, ocean or other waterway. Transshipment can involve all modes of transport. For example, goods can be loaded on a truck and brought to the railway for transport to the airport. Then the airfreight is transported by truck again to the port for ocean cargo shipping. The containers of goods can go through a lot of the same modes of transport when they reach their country of destination. Even if shipments are only traveling by water, they could be transferred from a cargo ship to a barge or from one ship to another in effort to consolidate shipments.
The extensive handling of freight and the potential complications of international transshipment, the customs requirements and local customs checks made along the way, combined with the need to carefully track progression, payments and delivery of shipments make it necessary to work with a logistics company when shipping internationally.
Many ocean shipping and international airfreight companies offer extensive logistics services. Some will have electronic tracking where importers and exporters shipping air or ocean freight can see exactly where their shipments are over the course of their journey from one point to another. Some will handle every aspect of shipment, including freight forwarding, financing, and insuring shipments, from factory to store delivery. This can greatly simplify international shipping for companies large and small, all over the world.
About the Author: Nelson Cabrera is the Business Development Manager of Lilly & Associates International, a transportaion and logistics company specializing in ocean freight and ocean shipping services. For more information, please visit http://www.shiplilly.com/.