​OOCL organizes customer seminar on EU 24

On October 21, 2010, OOCL customers were briefed on details of new European regulations by expert Peter Steehouwer, OOCL’s Inter Enterprise Process Integrator. 

To help customers get ready for the new regulations, OOCL organized a seminar which was the first of its kind to be organized by a container shipping company in Hong Kong. Some 100 customers attended the briefing during two sessions throughout the day.

The new regulations, known as EU ICS Advance Security Manifesting System, will be enforced from 1st January 2011. They introduce a new process to enable Security Risk Analysis of all EU bound cargo, to be undertaken at the first country in EU (Office of First Entry). The system is called Import Control System (ICS).

Representatives from Geodis, Kerry Logistics, and Kuehne-Nagel said they found the session “informative” and it was a unique chance to receive first-hand information from the expert on the ground in Europe.

“We found the information useful, as there are a lot of uncertainties about this regulation and there is a need for more information to be shared. Some things remain unclear, and we need to know exactly what to do to comply,” said Alvin Wong, General Manager of Seafreight, Kerry Logistics. 

Jack Wang, Manager of Kuehne-Nagel, agreed the seminar was “very informative, and OOCL is certainly the first carrier to organize this kind of event. We would be interested to attend future seminars on the subject.”

Anthony Kwan, operations supervisor of Geodis, said that the seminar “provided overall clear insights into EU 24”. 

Persistence to succeed and deliver the highest quality of work, as well as speed of communications resulted in OOCL to be one of the first companies to receive ICS certification from Dutch customs. OOCL was subsequently nominated by Dutch Customs for participation in the pilot production phase that started September 14th. This allowed OOCL to undertake end to end testing of our own in-house systems, well ahead of the implementation on January 1st 2011.

OOCL views this as the first of many "Production" successes to add to the success of test connections already in situ with many EU member states. This early groundwork and participation with National Customs will enable OOCL to confidently provide our customers with a reliable and fully tested system by January 1st.

Peter Steehouwer said: “OOCL has been in the lead group in our contacts with the EU commission through the World Shipping Council (WSC).”  He added: “In some problem areas, WSC has taken the lead, together with OOCL, and developed proposals for changes to the legislation which actually have been accepted and adopted by the EU Commission.” 
 
OOCL is widely regarded as the EU24 specialist. Peter Steehouwer was a speaker on behalf of the WSC at the Trans-Pacific Maritime Asia (TPM Asia) conference in Shenzhen, China on October 20, 2010, which was attended by 600 delegates. Mr Steehouwer travelled from the Netherlands to attend both TPM Asia and the customer seminar.

OOCL is an expert in customs issues, and offers products that can help customers to fulfil the requirements, such as 10+2 in the U.S and China 24.

An informative interview with Peter Steehouwer is available on OOCL's YouTube channel 

Please visit OOCL’s website for more details on our customs capabilities.

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