Problems with frozen fish deliveries to Ukraine leading to overloaded terminals at Klaipeda port - shipping company
VILNIUS. Nov 22 (Interfax) - All frozen food terminals in the port of Klaipeda are overcrowded due to problems with the delivery of frozen fish to Ukraine through Poland, the head of Benko Servisas (exports fish to Ukraine) Sigitas Ambrazevicius told Interfax.
"We no longer have vehicles coming in from Ukraine. We hire transport and sell everything in Klaipeda. (...) Now all the frozen food terminals in Klaipeda are overcrowded and do not accept cargo from all over the world. Now the Klaipeda port is the main one providing Ukraine with fish products. The trade flows were planned; everything was organized around the Christmas holiday period, and the Poles came up with the idea that they had to starve someone," Ambrazevicius said.
Since November 6, due to a protest by Polish carriers, traffic through three automobile checkpoints on the border of Ukraine and Poland has been partially blocked. This led to the formation of queues of approximately 1,700 vehicles in Poland and 20,000 in Ukraine. Protesters also threatened to block another checkpoint.
The cost of transporting cargo to Kiev has increased fourfold, Ambrazevicius said. "Instead of, for example, 1,500 euros for transportation to Kiev, we now have to pay 6,000 euros or more, and still there is not enough transport," he clarified, adding that the food supply chains for export and import that have developed over many years from/to Ukraine are being destroyed.
The head of the International Transport and Logistics Alliance (TTLA), Povilas Drizas, told Interfax that due to the long queues, drivers from Ukrainian carrier companies are forced to wait up to 17 days to enter Poland.
"In general, in the sector, we have not suffered much, because there are not a lot of Lithuanian carriers involved in transportation between Ukraine and Poland. They number in the dozens of companies; certainly not in the hundreds," Drizas said.
Bloomberg reports that truckers from Hungary, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic intend to appeal to the head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, with a demand to reconsider the terms of the agreement on the liberalization of transportation with Ukraine (the so-called "transport visa-free" regime).
Carriers say the agreement, which expires in June 2024, is seriously disrupting the market and causing irreparable harm to European carriers. Carriers would like a reduction in the duration of this agreement or at minimum, assurances that it will not be extended.