Nicky Wagner (left), who represents a Christchurch electorate, has become New Zealand’s minister of Customs, replacing veteran Maurice Williamson who was forced to resign because of an ethics breach.
Widely praised for her work in supporting the complex Christchurch rebuild, Wagner’s new portfolios also include associate minister for Canterbury earthquake recovery.
Like Williamson, she is a minister outside cabinet. Wagner is expected to move into cabinet in the next parliamentary term should the National Party led by PM John Key return to power.
Williamson was to some extent caught up in the tension building prior to this year’s national election in late September. Various allegations have been made about ministers, but he is the only one to fall. His sin was to ask the police about a domestic violence prosecution involving a mega-rich Chinese investor who had made a donation to the National Party.
The opposition Labour Party, which has this year languished low in the polls under its latest leader David Cunliffe, its third since the latest election in 2011, has also reshuffled its (shadow) cabinet.
This has seen Auckland MP Phil Twyford move to the front bench, adding the Transport portfolio to his responsibilities.
Twyford lost the transport portfolio last year in a demotion seen as punishment for his support of Grant Robertson in the bitter battle for leadership, now undertaken though a primary structure involving votes from members and unions as well as Caucus.
The Labour reshuffle was triggered by the resignation of Shane Jones, a high-flyer who also bid last year for the leadership. He was head hunted by the government to become a roving ambassador in the Pacific Islands region, focusing primarily on the development of commercial fishing and fish exports, including freight aspects.
A A$1.6billion Perth Freight Link to connect Fremantle Port with Kewdale and beyond has been jointly funded by the federal and Western Australian governments.
The Australian government has committed A$925million to the Perth Freight Link, which is expected to remove 65,000 vehicles from the local road network daily.
WA Transport minster Dean Nalder said the project would include a five km four-lane dual carriageway extension of the Roe Highway, from its existing terminus at the Kwinana Freeway to Stock Road in Coolbellup plus improvements to Stock Road and High Street.
“Some works on the Perth Freight Link project will start mid year, with tenders for the main works on the Roe Highway extension and Stock Road improvements scheduled for mid-2015,” said Nalder.
“It is expected the Perth Freight Link will be open to traffic by the end of the decade. When combined with the current A$1billion Gateway project, this road infrastructure will provide great efficiencies for industry, and ultimately boost the WA economy.”
DHL Supply Chain is building an integrated build-to-suit (BTS) logistics warehouse facility worth more than SID 154 million (EUR 90 million) at Singapore’s Tampines LogisPark.
The DHL Supply Chain Advanced Regional Centre is a combined investment of approximately EUR23 million from DHL and more than EUR70 million from Cache Logistics Trust. The spend will further support DHL Supply Chain’s market across key aerospace, healthcare and technology industries, and grow its business in the region’s emerging markets.
“DHL’s investment of approximately EUR23 million from 2015 to 2018 will focus on strengthening warehouse facilities, transport capabilities, IT and people,” said Oscar de Bok, chief executive, South and South East Asia, DHL Supply Chain. “By the time of completion, we plan to increase the staff strength in Singapore to over 2,000. This will contribute to our regional goal of reaching 25,000 staff by 2015, an increase of 65 per cent from 2014.
“Since the announcement of our regional growth strategy in 2013, DHL has committed a total investment of EUR140 million across South and South East Asia. In addition to the new Centre, we have planned for many more facilities in the years to come.”
Expanding in Singapore
The iCentre will increase DHL’s warehouse capacity in Singapore by 40 per cent. This facility will occupy the largest parcel of land in Tampines LogisPark, spanning nearly 60,000 square metres and boasting a warehouse floor area of over 90,000 square metres.
The Asia Pacific Solutions & Innovation Center (ASIC), the first innovation centre for DHL outside Troisdorf, Germany, will be the first Centre of Excellence for innovative logistics services and solutions in the region. The state-of-the-art facility will serve as a regional platform to engage customers, industry partners and the Singapore research and government community on business and innovation-related matters. Besides live demonstrations of the latest logistics trends and innovative solutions, the Innovation Center will set industry standards through the set-up of several competence centres dedicated to identifying, monitoring and harnessing specific logistics industry trends and market developments.
The ASIC will also house the world’s first Centre of Excellence for Automation. The facility will be designed for complex multi-sector and multi-user operations, showcasing cutting-edge automation solutions such as an automated storage and order picking system. In addition, DHL will recruit and train a local team of skilled specialists in automation for the new facility.
“This state-of-the-art facility exemplifies how the logistics industry in Singapore can achieve operational excellence and productivity gains through innovation and automation,” said Jason Goh, managing director, DHL Supply Chain Singapore. “The automation technology will reduce the time required to pick, pack and ship items, enabling faster order fulfilments.
“Our continued focus on improving workflow processes has already resulted in a 25 per cent growth in top line revenue in Singapore since 2008.” Construction of the new facility is expected to be completed by the second half of 2015. DHL’s Asia-Pacific, Middle East and Africa (APMEA) regional office and Singapore country office will then be re-located to the premises.
Air transport communications company SITA will introduce technology that will allow airlines to efficiently and cost-effectively track their aircraft.
The system, which is currently being evaluated by several airlines for testing, will utilise technology that is already installed in the aircraft to provide advanced tracking capabilities.
The SITA Aircom Server Flight Tracker solution will enable interested airlines to track aircraft movement by merging SITA’s airline dispatcher center system and airline operations center system (AIRCOM) Server, with its Future Air Navigation System (FANS) ground application, which is available to Air Navigation Service Providers (ANSPs).
“The FANS system is already installed in many aircraft, so the service does not call for extensive additional cost or investment by the airlines,” said Francesco Violante, ceo of SITA.
“The Server Flight Tracker system will allow end-to-end flight tracking on conditions and parameters the airline sets through their own ADS (Automatic Dependent Surveillance) contract. This in turn will help the airline to react to different aircraft events, including adapting the pace of tracking as appropriate. The service can be fully managed from the ground and is not dependent on actions from the crew or cockpit as the data is sent automatically after initialisation.”
AIR freight markets continued to post gains in April thanks to improvements in world trade and recovery in global demand, according to Airports Council International (ACI).
Except for Africa, all regions experienced growth in year-over-year air freight volumes. The two largest global air freight markets, North America and Asia-Pacific, continued to lead the air freight recovery with growth levels of more than five per cent. The key freight hubs of Shanghai, Memphis and Hong Kong experienced strong gains of 10.6 per cent, 9.3 per cent and six per cent, said ACI World’s economics director Rafael Echevarne.
“Air freight has seen a strong turnaround since 2013. Year-over-year growth has remained in the realm of four per cent over the previous six months. While there are signs of a Chinese slowdown on several fronts, the rise in global demand has boosted Chinese exports. Some key hubs in the region continue to perform well with respect to air freight volumes compared to previous years.” In the cabins, global passenger traffic grew by 6.7 per cent.
International travel increased nine per cent for the month, while domestic passenger markets were up 4.8 per cent.
While all regions across-the-board experienced gains in passenger traffic, the Middle East continued to stand out with 14.7 per cent passenger growth.
Major hubs Dubai, Doha and Abu Dhabi posted gains of 13.7 per cent, 17.5 per cent and 22.5 per cent respectively. On a year-to-date basis, Dubai ranked third in terms of passenger traffic, almost reaching the 25-million-passenger mark within the first four months of 2014.
International passenger traffic was also strong in Europe, with gains of over nine per cent compared to the previous year. London Heathrow, Paris CDG and Istanbul led traffic for the region in April with growth of 6.4 per cent, 7.9 per cent and 9.9 per cent respectively.
The domestic markets of Latin America and the Caribbean also grew. Sao Paulo, Mexico and Cancun saw domestic traffic increase by 16 per cent, 12.4 per cent and 10.7 per cent respectively.
“While there is a definite Easter effect contributing to a strong April in terms of passengers carried, even after adjusting for this effect, air transport demand continues to stay on its growth path,” Echevarne added.
“Looking back over the previous 12 months as a barometer for success, as many as 27 of the top 30 airports in the world achieved gains in traffic from May 2013 to April 2014. Major airport hubs in emerging markets such as Dubai, Istanbul, Kuala Lumpur and Sao Paulo continue to experience double-digit growth.”
The Custom Brokers and Forwarders Council of Australia (CBFCA) has expressed ‘frustration and concern’ following the release of documents through the Australian Customs and Border Protection Service (ACBP) Freedom Of Information (FOI) Disclosure Log that reveal an apparent reluctance for action by the ACBP on the issue of authority to act. CBFCA says examination of the documents show a change in practice as to the requirements on the authority to act as set out in ACBPN 2013/064.
The documents provide an interesting insight into the ACBP change in practice as to requirements on authority to act as set out in ACBPN 2013/064, said CBFCA executive director Steve Morris.
“The released information is probably more of interest to industry for what is not said rather than what is.
“The disclosure has been heavily redacted.
“The ACBP policy position on the requirements of service providers to importers of record to have and maintain an authority to act was first noted as a policy position in Australian Customs Notice 89/9 and over the intervening period, up until the change in practice in 2014, the ACBP position on the authority to act remained constant in numerous public policy statements.
“The ACBP position on the change in practice on authority to act was ostensibly on the basis of a request by the ACBP to the Attorney General for clarification of an issue which, in the main, did not relate to an authority to act but related more to the activities of certain service providers in the express carrier environment.
“That legal advice is set out in the released documents,” Morris added.
“If, as stated by the ACBP, this advice was the driver for change then it is open to question why the ACBP waited some five years to implement what was seen as a legal requirement in 2009.
“The CBFCA has, over an extended period, discussed with the ACBP the need for persons to hold an authority to act in relation to the making of an import declaration as this was one of the aspects noted by the ACBP in compliance audits of licensed corporate customs brokerages. There was the requirement that an authority to act, in an appropriate written form by letter or e-mail, be held by the licensed Customs broker.
“If such was not available or able to be demonstrated, then that was noted as a compliance deficiency. “However, in other places the ACBP did not enforce such a requirement where parties undertook customs clearance on behalf of third parties. In fact, as will be noted in the FOI documents and the undermentioned link, the ACBP took the position that a service provider’s Terms and Conditions were in fact able to be construed as an appropriate authority to act.” (Those documents can be downloaded from www.customs.gov.au/webdata/resources/files/2013-041776_NoticeofDecisionDL.pdf) The CBFCA contends that such a position was not correct at law.
“The CBFCA put forward its position to the ACBP on authority to act in a comprehensive submission in 2008 and 2009. To date the key issues on the submission have yet to be responded to, or even addressed, by the ACBP.
“Of additional concern to the CBFCA is the position adopted by the ACBP in its determination of owner as regards the Infringement Notice Scheme (INS) and the inclusion of service providers, such as licensed Customs brokers, within that ‘definition of owner’ aspect. This remains an issue of concern to the CBFCA.
“What is clear is that the ACBPN 2013/064 remains the policy (as bad as that may be until challenged) position on the ACBP on authority to act. CBFCA advised its members to note those requirements accordingly.
“The CBFCA will continue to pursue resolution of these aspects with the ACBP so as to ensure CBFCA members’ interests on these INS aspects are appropriately addressed and resolved,” said Morris.
Nicky Wagner (left), who represents a Christchurch electorate, has become New Zealand’s minister of Customs, replacing veteran Maurice Williamson who was forced to resign because of an ethics breach.
Widely praised for her work in supporting the complex Christchurch rebuild, Wagner’s new portfolios also include associate minister for Canterbury earthquake recovery.
Like Williamson, she is a minister outside cabinet. Wagner is expected to move into cabinet in the next parliamentary term should the National Party led by PM John Key return to power.
Williamson was to some extent caught up in the tension building prior to this year’s national election in late September. Various allegations have been made about ministers, but he is the only one to fall. His sin was to ask the police about a domestic violence prosecution involving a mega-rich Chinese investor who had made a donation to the National Party.
The opposition Labour Party, which has this year languished low in the polls under its latest leader David Cunliffe, its third since the latest election in 2011, has also reshuffled its (shadow) cabinet.
This has seen Auckland MP Phil Twyford move to the front bench, adding the Transport portfolio to his responsibilities.
Twyford lost the transport portfolio last year in a demotion seen as punishment for his support of Grant Robertson in the bitter battle for leadership, now undertaken though a primary structure involving votes from members and unions as well as Caucus.
The Labour reshuffle was triggered by the resignation of Shane Jones, a high-flyer who also bid last year for the leadership. He was head hunted by the government to become a roving ambassador in the Pacific Islands region, focusing primarily on the development of commercial fishing and fish exports, including freight aspects.
A A$1.6billion Perth Freight Link to connect Fremantle Port with Kewdale and beyond has been jointly funded by the federal and Western Australian governments.
The Australian government has committed A$925million to the Perth Freight Link, which is expected to remove 65,000 vehicles from the local road network daily.
WA Transport minster Dean Nalder said the project would include a five km four-lane dual carriageway extension of the Roe Highway, from its existing terminus at the Kwinana Freeway to Stock Road in Coolbellup plus improvements to Stock Road and High Street.
“Some works on the Perth Freight Link project will start mid year, with tenders for the main works on the Roe Highway extension and Stock Road improvements scheduled for mid-2015,” said Nalder.
“It is expected the Perth Freight Link will be open to traffic by the end of the decade. When combined with the current A$1billion Gateway project, this road infrastructure will provide great efficiencies for industry, and ultimately boost the WA economy.”
DHL Supply Chain is building an integrated build-to-suit (BTS) logistics warehouse facility worth more than SID 154 million (EUR 90 million) at Singapore’s Tampines LogisPark.
The DHL Supply Chain Advanced Regional Centre is a combined investment of approximately EUR23 million from DHL and more than EUR70 million from Cache Logistics Trust. The spend will further support DHL Supply Chain’s market across key aerospace, healthcare and technology industries, and grow its business in the region’s emerging markets.
“DHL’s investment of approximately EUR23 million from 2015 to 2018 will focus on strengthening warehouse facilities, transport capabilities, IT and people,” said Oscar de Bok, chief executive, South and South East Asia, DHL Supply Chain. “By the time of completion, we plan to increase the staff strength in Singapore to over 2,000. This will contribute to our regional goal of reaching 25,000 staff by 2015, an increase of 65 per cent from 2014.
“Since the announcement of our regional growth strategy in 2013, DHL has committed a total investment of EUR140 million across South and South East Asia. In addition to the new Centre, we have planned for many more facilities in the years to come.”
Expanding in Singapore
The iCentre will increase DHL’s warehouse capacity in Singapore by 40 per cent. This facility will occupy the largest parcel of land in Tampines LogisPark, spanning nearly 60,000 square metres and boasting a warehouse floor area of over 90,000 square metres.
The Asia Pacific Solutions & Innovation Center (ASIC), the first innovation centre for DHL outside Troisdorf, Germany, will be the first Centre of Excellence for innovative logistics services and solutions in the region. The state-of-the-art facility will serve as a regional platform to engage customers, industry partners and the Singapore research and government community on business and innovation-related matters. Besides live demonstrations of the latest logistics trends and innovative solutions, the Innovation Center will set industry standards through the set-up of several competence centres dedicated to identifying, monitoring and harnessing specific logistics industry trends and market developments.
The ASIC will also house the world’s first Centre of Excellence for Automation. The facility will be designed for complex multi-sector and multi-user operations, showcasing cutting-edge automation solutions such as an automated storage and order picking system. In addition, DHL will recruit and train a local team of skilled specialists in automation for the new facility.
“This state-of-the-art facility exemplifies how the logistics industry in Singapore can achieve operational excellence and productivity gains through innovation and automation,” said Jason Goh, managing director, DHL Supply Chain Singapore. “The automation technology will reduce the time required to pick, pack and ship items, enabling faster order fulfilments.
“Our continued focus on improving workflow processes has already resulted in a 25 per cent growth in top line revenue in Singapore since 2008.” Construction of the new facility is expected to be completed by the second half of 2015. DHL’s Asia-Pacific, Middle East and Africa (APMEA) regional office and Singapore country office will then be re-located to the premises.
Air transport communications company SITA will introduce technology that will allow airlines to efficiently and cost-effectively track their aircraft.
The system, which is currently being evaluated by several airlines for testing, will utilise technology that is already installed in the aircraft to provide advanced tracking capabilities.
The SITA Aircom Server Flight Tracker solution will enable interested airlines to track aircraft movement by merging SITA’s airline dispatcher center system and airline operations center system (AIRCOM) Server, with its Future Air Navigation System (FANS) ground application, which is available to Air Navigation Service Providers (ANSPs).
“The FANS system is already installed in many aircraft, so the service does not call for extensive additional cost or investment by the airlines,” said Francesco Violante, ceo of SITA.
“The Server Flight Tracker system will allow end-to-end flight tracking on conditions and parameters the airline sets through their own ADS (Automatic Dependent Surveillance) contract. This in turn will help the airline to react to different aircraft events, including adapting the pace of tracking as appropriate. The service can be fully managed from the ground and is not dependent on actions from the crew or cockpit as the data is sent automatically after initialisation.”
AIR freight markets continued to post gains in April thanks to improvements in world trade and recovery in global demand, according to Airports Council International (ACI).
Except for Africa, all regions experienced growth in year-over-year air freight volumes. The two largest global air freight markets, North America and Asia-Pacific, continued to lead the air freight recovery with growth levels of more than five per cent. The key freight hubs of Shanghai, Memphis and Hong Kong experienced strong gains of 10.6 per cent, 9.3 per cent and six per cent, said ACI World’s economics director Rafael Echevarne.
“Air freight has seen a strong turnaround since 2013. Year-over-year growth has remained in the realm of four per cent over the previous six months. While there are signs of a Chinese slowdown on several fronts, the rise in global demand has boosted Chinese exports. Some key hubs in the region continue to perform well with respect to air freight volumes compared to previous years.” In the cabins, global passenger traffic grew by 6.7 per cent.
International travel increased nine per cent for the month, while domestic passenger markets were up 4.8 per cent.
While all regions across-the-board experienced gains in passenger traffic, the Middle East continued to stand out with 14.7 per cent passenger growth.
Major hubs Dubai, Doha and Abu Dhabi posted gains of 13.7 per cent, 17.5 per cent and 22.5 per cent respectively. On a year-to-date basis, Dubai ranked third in terms of passenger traffic, almost reaching the 25-million-passenger mark within the first four months of 2014.
International passenger traffic was also strong in Europe, with gains of over nine per cent compared to the previous year. London Heathrow, Paris CDG and Istanbul led traffic for the region in April with growth of 6.4 per cent, 7.9 per cent and 9.9 per cent respectively.
The domestic markets of Latin America and the Caribbean also grew. Sao Paulo, Mexico and Cancun saw domestic traffic increase by 16 per cent, 12.4 per cent and 10.7 per cent respectively.
“While there is a definite Easter effect contributing to a strong April in terms of passengers carried, even after adjusting for this effect, air transport demand continues to stay on its growth path,” Echevarne added.
“Looking back over the previous 12 months as a barometer for success, as many as 27 of the top 30 airports in the world achieved gains in traffic from May 2013 to April 2014. Major airport hubs in emerging markets such as Dubai, Istanbul, Kuala Lumpur and Sao Paulo continue to experience double-digit growth.”
The Custom Brokers and Forwarders Council of Australia (CBFCA) has expressed ‘frustration and concern’ following the release of documents through the Australian Customs and Border Protection Service (ACBP) Freedom Of Information (FOI) Disclosure Log that reveal an apparent reluctance for action by the ACBP on the issue of authority to act. CBFCA says examination of the documents show a change in practice as to the requirements on the authority to act as set out in ACBPN 2013/064.
The documents provide an interesting insight into the ACBP change in practice as to requirements on authority to act as set out in ACBPN 2013/064, said CBFCA executive director Steve Morris.
“The released information is probably more of interest to industry for what is not said rather than what is.
“The disclosure has been heavily redacted.
“The ACBP policy position on the requirements of service providers to importers of record to have and maintain an authority to act was first noted as a policy position in Australian Customs Notice 89/9 and over the intervening period, up until the change in practice in 2014, the ACBP position on the authority to act remained constant in numerous public policy statements.
“The ACBP position on the change in practice on authority to act was ostensibly on the basis of a request by the ACBP to the Attorney General for clarification of an issue which, in the main, did not relate to an authority to act but related more to the activities of certain service providers in the express carrier environment.
“That legal advice is set out in the released documents,” Morris added.
“If, as stated by the ACBP, this advice was the driver for change then it is open to question why the ACBP waited some five years to implement what was seen as a legal requirement in 2009.
“The CBFCA has, over an extended period, discussed with the ACBP the need for persons to hold an authority to act in relation to the making of an import declaration as this was one of the aspects noted by the ACBP in compliance audits of licensed corporate customs brokerages. There was the requirement that an authority to act, in an appropriate written form by letter or e-mail, be held by the licensed Customs broker.
“If such was not available or able to be demonstrated, then that was noted as a compliance deficiency. “However, in other places the ACBP did not enforce such a requirement where parties undertook customs clearance on behalf of third parties. In fact, as will be noted in the FOI documents and the undermentioned link, the ACBP took the position that a service provider’s Terms and Conditions were in fact able to be construed as an appropriate authority to act.” (Those documents can be downloaded from www.customs.gov.au/webdata/resources/files/2013-041776_NoticeofDecisionDL.pdf) The CBFCA contends that such a position was not correct at law.
“The CBFCA put forward its position to the ACBP on authority to act in a comprehensive submission in 2008 and 2009. To date the key issues on the submission have yet to be responded to, or even addressed, by the ACBP.
“Of additional concern to the CBFCA is the position adopted by the ACBP in its determination of owner as regards the Infringement Notice Scheme (INS) and the inclusion of service providers, such as licensed Customs brokers, within that ‘definition of owner’ aspect. This remains an issue of concern to the CBFCA.
“What is clear is that the ACBPN 2013/064 remains the policy (as bad as that may be until challenged) position on the ACBP on authority to act. CBFCA advised its members to note those requirements accordingly.
“The CBFCA will continue to pursue resolution of these aspects with the ACBP so as to ensure CBFCA members’ interests on these INS aspects are appropriately addressed and resolved,” said Morris.
Nicky Wagner (left), who represents a Christchurch electorate, has become New Zealand’s minister of Customs, replacing veteran Maurice Williamson who was forced to resign because of an ethics breach.
