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The European Parliament adopts the single customs window

This adoption is a further step towards the establishment of the EU’s “one-stop shop” for customs. This tool will facilitate trade, reduce administrative burdens and improve digital cooperation between authorities.

This will enable companies and operators to fulfil all their documentary obligations via a single portal. And the competent authorities will be able to effectively verify the information provided by operators.

At present, the formalities required at the EU’s borders are often lengthy and complex for both operators and national authorities. Problems of interoperability between authorities have been identified as the main obstacle to the integration of customs management and, more broadly, to the progress of the digital single market. With the EU’s “one-stop shop”, customs and other authorities will eventually be able to verify automatically and digitally that goods comply with EU requirements. They will also be able to check that the necessary formalities have been completed, offering a fully coordinated approach to clearing goods through customs.

The Council is now due to formally adopt the regulation in the coming weeks. This will allow the intergovernmental part of the window to come into force by 2025. The business-to-government facility will come into effect at a later date.

This initiative is part of a wider plan to modernise and strengthen customs controls in the Union at a time when the COVID-19 crisis and the implementation of sanctions against Russia highlight the importance of having an agile but strong Customs Union.

Foreign trade indices (FTI) for the third quarter of 2022

Increase in import and export unit value indices of 26.6% and 22.8% respectively. 

The index of import unit values rose by 26.6% in the third quarter of 2022 compared with the same quarter of 2021. This was mainly due to a 76.9% increase in the unit values of energy and lubricants. But also semi-finished products by 32.0%, food, beverages and tobacco by 30.8%, and raw mineral products by 97.0%. There were also finished industrial equipment products (7.5%), finished consumer goods (1.9%) and raw animal and vegetable products (12.7%).

The index of export unit values rose by 22.8% in the third quarter of 2022 compared with the same quarter of the previous year. This increase was mainly due to a 56.3% rise in the unit values of semi-finished products and a 61.3% rise in the unit values of raw mineral products. This was followed by a 19.7% rise in finished industrial equipment products, a 3.9% rise in finished consumer goods, and a 20.3% rise in raw animal and vegetable products. Food, beverages and tobacco accounted for 2.0%, and energy and lubricants for 30.4%.

Tanger Med: Performance on track for 2022

Tanger Med reports on its activities for the year 2022. A year marked by a consistent rise in all the complex’s indicators.

Overall tonnage processed during the year was up 6% on the previous year, reaching 107,822,662 tonnes.

CONTAINER TRAFFIC

Container traffic also increased by 6%, with 7,596,845 twenty-foot equivalent containers (TEUs) handled at the Tanger Med port complex. Excellent levels of productivity were achieved during 2022, exceeding the record mark of 700,000 TEU containers handled per month.
 

RO-RO TRAFFIC 

Double-digit growth was recorded in Ro-Ro traffic. 459,091 international road haulage trucks were handled, representing growth of 13% compared with 2021.
 
VEHICLE TRAFFIC

The Port Authority is also reporting double-digit growth in vehicle traffic. According to available data, 478,589 new vehicles were handled at the two vehicle terminals of the Tanger Med port complex in 2022, representing growth of 11% compared with 2021.

This traffic mainly includes 295,393 vehicles for export produced by the Renault plants, and 124,112 vehicles for export produced by the Stellantis (Peugeot) plant in Kénitra.

BULK LIQUID AND SOLID TRAFFIC

Liquid bulk traffic passed the 9 million tonnes mark for hydrocarbons handled. This traffic recorded an increase of 6% compared with 2021.
Dry bulk traffic came to 404,007 tonnes handled, up 18% on last year. This increase was mainly due to the traffic in sheet metal coils and cereals.

Antwerp-Bruges: containers suffer from the 2022 crisis

The new Antwerp-Bruges port complex in Belgium ended 2022 with a fall in its containerised volume, but saw all its bulk products regain ground. All in all, it was able to withstand the various difficulties of the year, ending it on a stable footing.

War in Ukraine, European sanctions against Russia, the energy crisis… Like many of the world’s ports, Antwerp-Bruges has had to contend with major difficulties in its first few months of life in 2022. Yet the Flemish port complex ended the year with a volume of 286.9 million tonnes. This was only 0.7% down on the previous year.

The Flemish port noted a 5.6% drop in the number of TEUs for the year compared with 2021, bringing annual traffic down to 13.5 million. It is estimated that while congestion problems began to ease in the third quarter. Soaring energy costs and global economic uncertainties have weighed on transport demand.

On the conventional side, the port of Antwerp-Bruges weathered the crisis well in the first half of the year. However, this positive trend did not continue in the third quarter. This was due to lower volumes of steel, the sector’s flagship traffic. Overall, steel traffic ended the year up by a modest 1.1% on 2021.

Ro-Ro traffic grew by 6.5%. This sector was buoyed by a 10% rise in the number of new cars, to 3.26 million. Rolling civil engineering equipment saw almost identical growth (9.6%).

By contrast, the number of used cars and trucks fell by 13.2% and 17% respectively. Finally, unaccompanied freight rose by 10% overall.

Coal up 210%

On the other hand, the war in Ukraine did not have the same impact on dry bulk as it did on containers. This sector benefited from it, ending 2022 with an increase of 13.8%, with 17.2 Mt. According to the port authority, this strong growth was due to an annual increase of 21%.