Ocean Tariffs, do you use them?

[Perry Trunick]

From Logistics Today's News and Views newsletter:

The National Customs Brokers and Freight Forwarders Association (NCBFAA) is reportedly considering filing a petition with the Federal Maritime Commission (FMC) to exempt carriers from publishing rates and charges in tariffs.

Since the passage of the Ocean Shipping Reform Act of 1998, the industry has expressed a decided preference for confidential pricing arrangements for international ocean shipments, according to the NCBFAA. Coupled with the changes in the law, NCBFAA believes it is time to exempt vessel operating common carriers (VOCC) and non-vessel-operating common carriers (NVOCC) from requirements to publish their rates and charges for international ocean transportation services in the form of tariffs.

The Ocean Transportation Committee of the National Industrial Transportation League (NITL) said it would examine shipper preferences on the proposed rate tariff exemption, including the NCBFAA assertion that shippers do not regularly use tariffs to obtain pricing information.

How do you obtain rate and pricing information from ocean carriers?

[curt]

At our company we did not use Tariffs, rather, all carriers have regional sales representatives. Depending on your Port and carrier you can discuss negotiating an individual contract with them. This can be done by you the freight forwarder or on behalf of your customer.

Our customers were Caribbean basin, we had individual contracts with Crowley, Seastar, Seaboard, and Horizon lines.

Also, contrcts have another competitive advantage, They are not published, and remain confidential.

Good luck in your information pursuits.

Curt

[brookedeng]

China is much the same like United States. But actually freight forwarder also have their rates and earn ocean freight from shipper,they can do more or less same like NVOCC. But at this begining of this month the government were negotiating a policy to stop this, By now we are waiting for the result.