Representatives of companies that export locally manufactured goods have been bemoaning the fact that Malta is being bypassed in shipments to northern European ports and this was negatively affecting the country’s reputation as a reliable supplier of exported goods, The Malta Independent has learnt.
Ships on their way to the UK and other northern European ports have been bypassing Malta.
Industry sources said it was bad enough that despite recent revisions to port charges, shipping costs on exported goods were still relatively high.
A presentation made during a conference organised by the Malta Federation of Industry (FOI) on Monday, showed that the costs associated with an imported 20-foot container went down by 12 per cent, and those for a 40-foot container went down by 15 per cent.
However, shipping costs to export goods only went down by 1.5 per cent for a 20-foot container and 2.1 per cent for a 40-foot container.
During the conference, John Magro from Magro Group Ltd expressed concern over problems regarding the shipment of exported goods.
Mr Magro said that over the past few months, Malta had been adequately connected to the UK and northern Europe, thanks to a consortium consisting of three main shipping lines, namely CMA-CGM, Hapag Lloyd and Hamburg Sud.
Unfortunately, some vessels stopped calling at Malta Freeport in September, said Mr Magro, adding that other vessels stopped calling on a weekly basis and their availability of space for locally manufactured exports was very limited.
He said that as a result, over the past 12 weeks or so, the company encountered problems related to short shipments. This meant that vessels called at Malta Freeport without loading containers with locally manufactured goods. As a result, 42 containers destined for the UK and Ireland were not shipped in due course.
“Our clients in Europe demand that goods are supplied on time. In order to meet this demand, we normally send enough stock for about three weeks to cover for any eventual short shipments and delays.
“This system has worked quite well over recent years and we rarely had problems. Lately, however, we had to incur substantial additional storage costs and we have still been encountering out-of-stock situations due to frequent disruptions related to these shipping problems.
Mr Magro said such disruptions have been negatively affecting the company’s reputation as a reliable supplier and some of its major suppliers have already sent warnings regarding supply issues.
Acknowledging that this was not the fault of the authorities, he said it was a new state of affairs that needed to be addressed before further damage was done to the country’s reputation as a reliable Mediterranean supplier to northern Europe.