Specials - ITJ | Transport Journal

EASTERN EUROPE &CENTRAL ASIAPhoto: thinkstockForeign trade may be weak, but long-term prospects are intactSome stumbling blocksWas this mere sabre-rattling in the summer lull? In any event, the validity of the TIR carnetfor HGV cross-border traffic has been provisionally extended by the Russian customs.However, the giant country must take care not to play all of its logistical trump cards.MAN Truck & Bus’ so-called consistentlyefficient tour 2013 has now arrivedin Russia, having covered more than90,000 km in Western Europe in 2011and South Africa in 2012. The commercialvehicle manufacturer is now touringthrough the European part of Russia.The road show started in the southernRussian town of Sochi, venue of the nextWinter Olympics, and proceeded to thecapital Moscow via the Ural metropolisof Yekaterinburg. A MAN TGS truckand a comparison model visited elevenstations between the Black Sea and theUral mountains, and were displayed tocustomers there. The 10,000 km journeyalso enabled the German company to geta picture of road conditions in Russia.Road congestion...Freight transportation is one of the biggestchallenges facing Russia, as routesoften cover thousands of kilometres, MichaelOtto told the German press agencydpa in Moscow. The chairman of thesupervisory board of the Otto Group, atrading and services company, reportedon 20 August that it was set to investEUR 50 million in Russia, above all indoubling the size of its existing logisticcentre in Tver, 170 km northwest of Moscow.Otto complained that «things don’talways run smoothly with the Russianpost office.» Sometimes shipments tookseveral weeks, he said. «But of course thestate post office faces enormous logisticschallenges,» he conceded. Bureaucracy isalso an obstacle. «We’ve always been ableto cope, however. In an initial phase customsclearance was incredibly tiresome,as our heavy goods vehicles were alwaysheld up at the border.»...and bureaucratic backlogsThis could be repeated if the Russian customsauthorities were to suspend acceptanceof the TIR carnet. Russia’s federalcustoms service announced on its websiteearly in July that it planned to changethe conditions for the application of theTIR process on 14 August. These conditionswere adopted in the Convention onthe International Transport of Goods in1975. They also describe the use of theTIR carnet, amongst other things. Thecustoms authorities claimed that paymentdifficulties on the part of the nationalassociation of international roadcarriers (Asmap) were responsible for thesuspension of the process. The Russianbody, which monitors the TIR systemin the country, denied these allegationsPhoto: MANMAN was on the road in Russia in August,displaying its new tractors.vigorously. Meanwhile, the acceptance ofthe TIR carnet at the country’s borderswas extended until 14 September.Dormant potentialHomemade circumstances may have leadto this situation, such as the fact that RussianGDP grew by just 1.8% in the firstfive months of this year, significantly lessthan in the preceding three years, whengrowth oscillated between 3.4 and 4.5%.Rosstat has predicted growth of 2.5% forthe whole year, however, a figure whichmany economies in Europe can onlydream of.The economy in Kazakhstan is setto be even stronger – the InternationalMonetary Fund predicts GDP growth of5.7% in the second largest country in theregion, which also did not experience arecession in 2009 (GDP +1.2%).Andreas Haugwww.asmap.ru