Spoke with a good friend a few days ago whom is a customs broker here in Odessa. She stated that business overall has declined precipitously over the last several months. She emphasized that container traffic at the busiest port of Ukraine has slowed to a trickle. This is borne out by anecdotes of others we have contacted whom are connected with trade and logistics services.
Here is a story from www.kommersant.com regarding wine imports and Russia. It is a fair indication of the reduction of trade worldwide.
Import Wine Piled Up at Customs Warehouses
“The global financial turmoil has broken up preparation for New Year festivities. Thousands of unpaid bottles are still at the customs terminals, while the supplies shed 2.5 fold to 3 fold on year in October and November. But the analysts foresee no shortage, as the demand for alcohol is going down as well.
The importers don’t take wine from the customs storage facilities, confirmed Artur Baranovsky, who is the director of DNT terminal in Latvia that annually handles over 1,000 vans with wine imported to Russia. Each van carries 16,000 bottles. His words echoed Alexander Arbuzov, head of the Moscow terminal in Solntsevo that services wine supplies from CIS.
Baranovsky said the usual practice is that the terminal’s handling surges 2.5 fold to 3 fold in October and November on supplies timed to New Year festivities. This year, however, the turnover matches the summer indicators, which traditionally suffer from the import decline.
According to Federal Customs Service, some 207 million liters of wine were delivered to Russia in January through October. Russia produced 430 million liters over the period, according to official statistics. Even the cheapest import wine costs 1.5 fold to 2 fold more than the wine of local make, so the market shares are relatively equal in terms of money.
The wine imports shed to 20.4 million liters in October from 21.3 million liters in September, showed the data of Federal Customs Service. But the trend was quite the opposite past year, when the supplies grew by October, up to to 20.1 million liters vs the 18.8 million liters imported in September.
Nowadays, however, even big importers slashed the supplies by 1.5 fold to 2.5 fold. The imports of Moro, for instance, lowered from 2.9 million liters to 2.5 million liters. What’s more, the importers not only tend to order fewer new brands but they even return the already paid ones, abandoning the planned future supplies”
Anton Olff
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