Evergreen Marine Corp of Taipei is going to join the CKYH Alliance comprised by the Chinese COSCO Container Lines, the Japanese Kawasaky Kisen Kaisha, the Taiwanese Yang Ming and the South Korean Hanjin.

The Alliance will be renamed CKYHE after the entrance of Evergreen.

The parties have come to an agreement under which the contribution of Evergreen will be restricted to services between Asia and Europe, particularly the Mediterranean.

According to conjectures the new alliance, officially formed in March 2014, will begin operations offering 6 operated services from Asia to North Europe and 4 operated services covering Asia to Mediterranean trade.

After the announce of the building constructions of the Nicaragua Canal and of the consequently answer of the Panama Canal, there was obviously the answer of one of the biggest canals of the world: the Suez Canal.

The Suez Canal it’s an artificial ship canal situated in Egypt westerly to the Sinai Peninsula between Port Said (Bûr Sa'îd) on the Mediterranean Sea and Suez. It allows ships to travel between Europe and Asia without circumnavigating Africa on the sailing route of Cape of Good Hope.

Friday, 1^st of August 2014. The Autoridad of the Canal de Panamá (ACP) and the Consortium Grupos Unidos por el Canal (GUPC), (composed of the Spanish Sacyr Callehermoso, the Italian Salini-Impregilo, the Belgian Jan de Nul and the Panamanian Urban Construction), signed the contract’s variation that will be needed to complete the construction of the third set of locks of the Panama Canal, that’s to say the main intervention of the expansion project of the Central American canal that will double the capacity of the Panama Canal by 2015, allowing the transit of larger ships.

In fact, today, the current system of locks allows the transit of ships like the Panamax vessels, with a capacity of 4,400 TEUs, a maximum length of 294 meters, a maximum width of 32 meters and a draft of 12 meters; but thanks to the creation of the Third Set of Locks of the Canal vessels of greater tonnage called Post Panamax with a capacity of up to 12,000 TEUs, a length of 366 meters, a width of 49 meters, a draft of 15 meters will be able to transit.

The expansion project of the Panama Canal in addition to the widening and lowering of the bottom of the navigation channel, plans to construct two new locks, one each on the Atlantic and Pacific sides and  Each will have three watertight chambers with water-saving basins.

This expansion project will be financially profitable to Panama promoting the increase of the trade market thanks to the future transit of Post-Panamax in addition to an increase of employment.

The challenge between Panama and Nicaragua is still on, a challenge that seems to be at the very beginning!

Once decided the profit of the goods depending on Incoterms  and then set transport conditions, IFA has looked first for a marine carrier more reliable and which can provide the quantity of equipment (in this case: number of containers) needed for a single shipment (15 * 40' HCRF), offering the required transit times and affreightment conditions (sea freight) suitable for the volume of shipment concerned.
Taking into consideration the preparation’s demands of goods meeting tight deadlines, it has been identified the suitable carrier to ensure punctuality and precision in meeting the required deadlines requested from the heath officer who is present during the load. The carrier was also asked to be able to transport safely the 15*40 HCRF.
Moreover, the most reliable customs operator was chosen so that the customs clearance operations would be carried out with caution and precision just in time for the customs closing at the boarding.

The precise organization of the supply chain has ensured the observance of load times provided by the client avoiding porterage and extra cargo movement expenses, export detention  and export demurrage  expenses , in addition to the cost of connection to the columns in the port.

The perfect observance of deadlines and of the right issue of BL was indispensable in order to guarantee the proper negotiation of the letter of credit.
Moreover, IFA has made sure of the container's progression from the unload port to the collector's warehouse coordinating the different appointed roles given to IFA in Russia, customs operators and carrier offering, in this way, a dedicated monitoring for the delivery of goods until the establishment of the receiver.
The shipment of 15 reefer containers of foodstuff, thanks to the experience and ability of IFA, has been a success.
Organize and manage optimizing resources and deadlines in the better way possible is the MISSION of IFA

The tension between the EU and Russia rises again regarding the "war of hams," because it is yet to be reached a bilateral agreement to remove the interdiction of European exports of pork previously imposed by Moscow in late January 2014.

It was actually in late January, after the identification of four Byelorussian boars affected by African swine influenza between Lithuania and Poland, that Moscow decided one-sidedness to block the pork imports from Europe.

The European Commission had already tuned to Geneva in April 2014 in order to solve the problem by bilateral discussions but the outcome was unsuccessful.

For these reason the European commission has decides to ask the WTO the intervention of a panel to solve this argue, which has an economic impact equal to 580 million euros on European exports to Russia on a total of 1, 4 billion euros per year for 750 thousand tons (almost 20% of Russian consumption, of which 3, 3% are products coming from Italy).

The P3 (alliance made between shipping lines: Maersk, CMA CGM and MSC) will have to postpone the start date of its services (previously planned to start in first half of 2014), at least starting from Autumn 2014, due to the precautions put into effect by the Beijing ‘s authority against it regarding its legitimacy (decision still in development).

At the beginning of 2014, the P3, had received the green light from the Federal Maritime Commission of the United States to become operative and had already spread the list of ports and services within which the three companies would begin to operate in: Trieste , Genoa, La Spezia, Naples and Gioia Tauro, employing 13,000 TEUs ships.

However the port of Gioia Tauro, which sees a constant shift in the transshipment of weapons coming from Syria, will benefit from the continuous postponement of P3.

The actual beginning of P3’s services will bring, for sure, some very interesting developments in the shipping world for those companies that export and import to and from Italy and various overseas destinations.

The extension work of the third axis of the Panama Canal have slowed down again due to a strike nine days long announced by the Suntracs labour union aiming to a pay raise.

During the last few years the economic diplomacy of Belgrade has concluded a series of bilateral trade agreements intended to facilitate advancement and development of commerce between Serbia and all those countries that will decide to invest in the Country.

Among the different countries whit which Italy trades and exports, Russia is doubtless the main commerce for Italian export.

Despite the present period of crisis and the closure of tons of markets there are more and more Italian companies using export to Russia, a country that place itself 5^th among our major importers and that represents an opportunity of an always growing business.

Italy has always been considered “the Garden of Europe” not only for the beauty of nature it owns but also for its edibles products famous for their quality and delicacy such as wine, chocolate and olive oil.