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Japan is one of the world’s most developed and diverse economies, with a consumer driven economy similar to the United States. The leading export categories from the US to Japan are food (corn and soybeans being the top), aircraft and parts, gasoline and petroleum products, machinery, medical instruments (including X ray machines), lab equipment, and pharmaceuticals, which are all in the billions of $USD, but there are ma

This post will complete our Oceania Market Series. While it includes many different countries and islands, the bulk of which get the majority of their GDP from the tourism industry, shipping to these nations offers a great opportunity to those shippers who service industries that cater to the tourism industry including food, beverages, and agricultural products, construction equipment, transportation equip

The United States is a top 3 trading partner of New Zealand according to 2016 statistics from MIT's Observation of Economic Complexity. New Zealand imported 11% of their goods from the U.S. In 2017, the United States exported $3.924 bil

Australia, the largest market for shipping US goods in Oceania is a perfect market for many US manufactured goods. While US exports to Australia are not near their all-time high of $31 billion in 2012, 2017 still posted a respectable $24.6 billion. The United States is Australia’s 3^rd largest trading partner; therefore it

Learn How the New Carrier Alliances Affect Your Ocean Freight Contracts and/or Shipments.

  The new ocean carrier shipping alliances are fully operational as of April 2017. These 3 carrier alliances represent nearly 80% of global container trade and roughly 90% of container capacity on major trade routes. The main trade lane that is highly affected by this change and the main reason for the new alliances is the North America-Asia a.k.a. “East-West” trade lane between the Far East and North America which will represent 96% of East-West trade. This post is focused more on the trade routes that related to North America.   If you employ an NVOCC or interna

First, let’s start off with a few definitions: Multimodal: Multimodal transport (also known as combined transport) is the transportation of goods under a single contract, but performed with at least two different means of transport; the carrier is liable (in a legal sense) for the entire carriage, even though it is performed by several different modes of transport (by rail, sea and road, for example). The carrier does not have to possess all the means of transport, and in practice usually does not; the carriage is often performed by sub-carriers (referred to in legal language as "actual carriers"). The carrier responsible for the entire carriage is referred to as a multimodal tra

This post describes the main differences between an international freight forwarder and an NVOCC according to the Federal Maritime Commission (FMC) of the United States. Most of the information in this post is taken from the FMC's own website. Ocean Transportation Intermediaries (OTIs) are either Ocean Freight Forwarders or Non-Vessel-Operating Common Carriers and are regulated by the FMC pursuant to the Shipping Act of 1984. An Ocean Freight Forwarder (OFF) is an individual or compa

Misdeclaration of cargo weight is a major hazard which often results in cargo claims, structural damages to vessels and also poses a significant risk to the lives of staff. The International Maritime Organization (IMO) has amended the SOLAS (Safety of Life at Sea) convention under regulation 2 of chapter VI which mandates the declaration of the Verified Gross Mass (VGM) of a packed container before loading on board vessels within a prescribed cut-off date / time to the shipping line and / or port terminal authorities.   Effective July 1, 2016, SOLAS regulations for weighing con

DDP Shipments into the United States are defined as shipments where the foreign shipper (most of the time also known as the Seller of the goods) is paying for all charges including freight, duties, taxes, customs clearance charges up to the buyer’s door, warehouse or fulfillment center.   If the shipper (seller) overseas is selling on DDP terms, there are rules that must be followed in order to prevent any delays or customs holds.   There are two parties in a DDP shipment that must be clarified before the cargo is shipped into the United States: Importer of Record and Ultimate Consignee   Importer of Record In a DDP shipment, the Import

The Chargeable Weight of Air Freight shipments are calculated as the Actual Weight (Gross Weight) or the Volumetric (also called Volume or Dimensional) Weight of the shipment, whichever is the greater. This uses an estimated weight that is calculated based on the dimensions (length, width and height) of a package (shipments are always shown in the order of L x W x H). Typically, large items with a light overall weight take up more space on an aircraft than a small, heavy item. That’s why the Airlines charge according to Chargeable Weight.   Chargeable weight is commonly used by air freight forwarders, domestic motor carriers and brokers to calculate their air freight and/or domestic truck